Durban to host 2023 World Table Tennis Championships in May

The 2023 World Table Tennis Championship has been announced in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. The games will take place in May at the International Convention Center (ICC). The game’s mascot, Takuma, was also revealed at the launch.

Durban is set to host yet another world-class sporting showpiece in the World Table Tennis Championship later this year. Organisers say staging it in Southern Africa is bound to increase interest in the sport.

Africa first hosted the championships in 1939 in Egypt. Since then, the sport has evolved, with the World Table Tennis Board now having almost 230 members. They include all 54 African countries.

President of the South African Table Tennis Board, Joe Carrim says South Africa stands to benefit as the host nation.

“Well really the country is benefiting just by the investment of the international table tennis federation allocated two million dollars to the event that also is bringing all the sporting equipment into the country, and they have shared the expertise of the event with us. So, after this event, we will be well-equipped to run more professionalised events within the country. We started off with contender events at the olive convention centre in January and we can see the growth in our organizational capacity streaming from that to the event to where we going to in May,” says Carrim.

Carrim says qualifying rounds are still underway.

“Essentially when we look at the fact that the edition is the International individual championship you have 128 men and 128 women that will qualify to participate. What we can share with members soon will be the persons that qualify in the continental championships, the final qualifiers will only be announced on the 31st of March,” Carrim adds.

President of the eThekwini Table Tennis Association, Vika Bhengu says they hope the games will ignite a love for the sport among the younger generation.

“We are so happy, and we are eagerly awaiting the start of the games, being the hosting city is going to help us and even open the eyes of our kids about table tennis. Some of them do not take seriously this sporting code once they grow up, they venture into other sporting codes, so we are hoping to host World Table Tennis Championship will be an eye-opening for them,” says Bhengu.

China will come in as the defending champions after securing a double whammy last year after they both hosted and won the 2022 World Table Tennis Championships.