by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

Mohamed Gharib held meetings with Emmanuel Lebbie, the Secretary-General of the Sierra Leone Table Tennis Association and with Maher Almahdy, the Egyptian Ambassador in Sierra Leone.

Extensive discussions, it was agreed to invite players from Sierra Leone to visit Egypt for a series of training sessions prior to the ITTF-African Senior Championships to be staged next year. Correspondence has been sent to the relevant personnel at the Sierra Leone Ministry of Sport.

Notably Emmanuel Lebbie and Maher Almahdy alongside Lakish Alie, the President of the Sierra Leone Table Tennis Association, Michael Shamsu, the Deputy Director of Sport and A.G. Koroma, the Administrative Secretary of the Olympic Committee visited the coaching sessions being conducted by Mohamed Gharib.

All were most impressed at the standard of play that had been achieved, especially the very young players, aged six to ten years of age who had only started playing table tennis less than one month ago.

Throughout the whole programme there has been extensive media coverage; the potential, as in all countries is present, the task is to find ways to harness that potential.