Table Tennis Cup: IUG emerges champion

The Institute of the Gulf of Guinea is decidedly unstoppable in the game of table tennis in Cameroon. After winning all seven medals at the last university games and the table tennis championship in both the men and women’s series, IUG on Sunday August 16th again won the Cup of Cameroon in both the men and women categories.

They beat Canon of Yaoundé 3-2 in the men’s final and outsmarted Top Spin of Buea in the women’s final 3-1 to lord it over all. In the veteran category, it was Bepanda tennis club from Douala who emerged victorious beating Canon of Yaounde edging Canon 3-2.

Commenting on the performance of his athletes, the coach of IUG, Christian Tiague, who also happens to be the national coach, said it was the fruit of hard work and the means put at their disposal by the proprietor of the institution to enable them train under good conditions.

He said, his team was still young with an average age of 21 and therefore likely to win medals for Cameroon in future in international competitions.

One of the laureates for the institution, Nyoh Derick said he was particularly happy to have won the cup title this year especially as they lost in the cup final to ASVUTT which grabbed all last year.

Commenting on the unfolding of the final, the president of the Cameroon Table Tennis federation, Alfred Bagueka, who lost in the final in the veteran category, said the matches were hotly contested depicting the heightened interest youths are beginning to manifest for the game in Cameroon. This healthy competition, he said, makes for the development of the sports in Cameroon and the level of play of the athletes.

Though the final usually marks the end of the season for most sports federations, this is not the case with the table tennis federation as many competitions are still in the pipe line.

There is the Top 12, the Grand Prix Camrail, Regional championships, national individual championship and the Chinese Ambassador’s Cup still coming up. It would be recalled, table tennis was not retained among the sports disciplines to take part in the All African Games in Brazzaville-Congo. The federation is probably paying the price for the poor showing of Cameroonian athletes during the Africa Cup of Nations recently hosted by Cameroon.

Sarah Hanffou who had announced that she was going to leave the game after the African Games, will therefore not have the opportunity to bow out in honour. The leading Cameroonian tennis woman bowed out of the Africa cup in the quarter finals. As part of the continuous training programme of FECATT, table tennis athletes underwent a training camp at the Brasseries club in Yaounde from August 8th to 19th, 2015.