Darius knight occupies himself with a few tender exercise in a convertedbrewery in Brick Lane while all around him trainings are being made for aweekend tournament.
The extent to which young Darius has been charitable in his short knock-upagainst the Evening Standard just becomes clear afterwards. It transpires thatduring the rallies that the ball drifts across the internet at a mere 15mph, compared to80mph during competition and 100mph at the maximum degree.
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Aged 17, Knight, is one of brightest prospects in British ping pong thanksto his innate reaction instances, agility and knowledge of angles. A left-hander,he is ranked second among the country's seniors, won a gold at the YouthOlympics in Australia and is a real competitor to usurp the powerful Chinese atthe London Olympics.
Ping pong is not only his passion and career; it also supplied an escapefrom the downward spiral to criminality which has claimed a lot of hiscontemporaries brought on the identical tough estate in Battersea.
"Ping pong altered my entire life," he explained. "Once I was young I was always mis be having. However, I was able to find some attention through ping pong. I havematured and learned how to make the right decisions through sport.
"from 20 of us growing up only two have achieved something positive. Some of myfriends have already been to prison. Most of them are smoking, selling and are in gangs." Two others, I laterlearn, have been murdered on the streets in the past year. Knight's energies were channelled into ping pong six years back, when localcoach Gideon Ashison introduced a couple of estate children to the neighborhood youthclub. After fiscal problems closed the club, the coach persuaded a buddy toadapt his garden shed in an improvised training centre where Knight and Cowould play until the early hours.
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Darius left school at 16 and insists he can take up analyzing any time in thefuture, whereas the chances in ping pong has to be taken early. Five days a week he trains in the game's national center in Sheffield, whileon non-competition weekends he flies to play in a club at Montpellier in Francebecause he can not raise his game against his lesser training spouses in theUnited Kingdom.
Knight is among a group of teenagers - including British No1 Paul Drink hall -that it is hoped will spark a return to the sport's heyday in the Seventies,dominated by Desmond Douglas. The emergence of those young stars and stagingthe London Olympics has seen a resurgence in the sport that has led insponsorship from Fred Perry.
European champions at Under-15 and Under-18 degree, although it's during their present period of growth once the drop-outs become frequent. "There are many examples of kids that are talented as junior players but it's abig step to the seniors," explained British performance manager Steen Hansen. "It is the psychological things in addition to the technical things." Hansen accused SportEngland of a "lack of vision" for suspending lottery funding in 2003 only as Knight and Co were demonstrating progress. Now they're back on track financially andresisting the temptation of looking East to improve results.
Steen admits China is, in ping pong terms, "on a different planet". Its rejectsare being snapped up not just in Singapore and Hong Kong but also by all but ahandful of European countries. Steen points to the absurdity of six of the men's European Championshipsquarter-finalists being born in China.
He explained: "That's what we're up against. It can not be interesting if it's Chinese against Chinese." Knight will notexpect to rank high enough to create next year's Olympics but he hopes to travelto Beijing together with Team GB to obtain expertise. He can not imagine being a spectatorin 2012. "I wish to win a gold," he said. "I've got something stable today and it is allthere for me personally. I have to follow my programme and believe in myself."
A phrase from the very best: "We've got reasonably high expectations of winning that our firstOlympic medal at 2012 because of their talent coming through at junior level.
There's never been an Olympic medal for the UK and we all expect this will be a newdawn for us. As host country we are guaranteed a presence at 2012 however for theremainder of places we'll probably have to qualify through Europeancompetition with competitions traditionally being Germany, France, Sweden and fromEastern Europe.
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Clearly we would have enjoyed a purpose-built new venue for 2012 but also in realitythis couldn't sustain a club after the Games." Richard Yule, chief executiveof that the English Ping pongAssociation Increasing stars: Paul Drinkhall, GavinEvans, Kelly Sibley, Darius Knight British greats: Desmond Douglas, ChesterBarnes, Johnny Leach (world champion in 1949 and 1951) Lottery funding:[pounds sterling]750,000 annually Dramatic London clubs: Ellenborough Ping pongClub(Enfield), London Progress Ping pong Club (Southall), Eltham Manor TableTennis Club (Lewisham) History: evolved in England from golfing and waspopular as "ping pong" one of upper classes within an afterdinner pastime till themodern game was devised in the early 1900s.
