The ITTF President opened the World Championships in Bremen on 24th April 2006 stressing the importance of two main components of the P4 Plan, PARTICIPATION and POPULARITY:
"Table Tennis is growing in the World.
The ITTF Family is growing.
We can now count 200 member national associations of which more than 150 are here in Bremen attending these Championships. I thank Bremen for attracting such a big part of our family. But table tennis is not only growing in participation, but also in popularity. In 1992 at the Barcelona Olympic Games, table tennis ranked 24th out of 26 sports in terms of TV coverage. At the last Olympic Games in Athens, according to the IOC's report, table tennis ranked 5th overall out of 28 sports. This is a huge increase in TV coverage and the increase in popularity of our sport. The 2006 World Championships will receive a record TV coverage worldwide.
On behalf of the ITTF, I thank the German Table Tennis Association, the management team at AWD Dome and the City of Bremen for hosting this year's event. I also thank all the sponsors of the event, and in particular our title sponsor LIEBHERR, the major sponsors ARAG and China Unicom, as well as the members of the ITTF family, the equipment sponsors DONIC and TIBHAR"
The President officially declared the event open after these comments.
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