by Ian Marshall, Editor
Assisted by Jennifer Lucarevic from the United States, Brazil’s Luis Gustavo de Amorim and Argentina’s Cintia Mariño, a total of seven students from Brazil, Colombia, Great Britain, Ireland and the United States travelled to San José.
Most notably, they represented a divergent background ranging from an orthopedic surgeon to a neurologist, a physiotherapist to international coaches and sport scientists. Significantly present was Christian Lillieroos of the United States, well versed in Para Table Tennis and most active as a Course Conductor for ITTF High Performance and Development.
A former member of the International Paralympic Table Tennis Committee (IPTTC), Christian Lillieroos attended his first classification seminar in 1991; since then much water has flowed under the bridge.
“I attended the first IPTTC classification seminar in the then new functional system in 1991 conducted by Ton Brouwer. You would think that with my past history of being involved as a coach, coach educator, and technical delegate for over 40 years that I should be pretty good at figuring out what class an athlete should have when I see them as a classifier. It ended up being the opposite, I was the worst of everybody in the seminar at first predicting a class when I first saw them and in every borderline case I was always on the wrong side of the border and the worst at first predicting the first choice of preliminary class. The whole classification system is now much more focused on function than before and it includes more fairly impairment types. Especially the standing system is so much better now than it was when we started in the 90s.” Christian Lillieroos
Most certainly the contribution made by Christian Lillieroos was appreciated by all, there are few with his knowledge and experience.
“The seminar is part of a long term project that started last year with the goals of increasing the number of certified classifiers in the American region and updating the knowledge of the current ones.” Pablo Perez
Moreover, next year for the continent there is a busy time ahead; in August the 2019 Para Pan American Games will be held in the Peruvian capital city of Lima.
2018 Copa Costa Rica Para Open: Latest Results and Main Event Draws