This past weekend, the final individual Czech Championship of the 2024/2025 season took place in Hodonín, in the U19 category. Our four representatives – Štěpán Brhel, Jindřich Morávek, Oliver Vincenec, and Eliška Stramová – made their mark at the tournament. The biggest star was Štěpán Brhel, who returned after nearly three months off and went on...
This past weekend, the Czech National Championships in the U15 and U21 categories took place in Havířov — and our four representatives certainly didn't disappoint. Each of them returns home with at least one medal, with some collecting even more. The tournament brought a number of thrilling matches and valuable experience.
In mid-December, five junior national team players departed for a two-week training camp in China. Among them were Vít Kadlec and Štěpán Brhel. Under the guidance of coaches Martin Merker and Xu Kai, they had the opportunity to train alongside Chinese junior national players.
This past weekend marked the final Youth Ranking Tournaments (BTM) of the 2024 calendar year. Among our players, Štěpán Brhel delivered the strongest performance, celebrating victories in both the singles and the doubles — the latter alongside his regular partner Martin Šíp.
We dedicate great attention to youth development in our club, aiming to nurture our own homegrown players for all our teams. The time when we could select talented players from other Ostrava table tennis clubs is now gone forever.
Currently, only about three other Ostrava clubs occasionally focus on youth development, mostly through hobby groups, which do not provide young players with the habits necessary for elite table tennis. Therefore, we must train players from the very beginning, which is very demanding both financially and time-wise.
Given the need to provide training for players of all our teams competing in long-term leagues, it is very difficult to secure playing space and adequate coaching specifically for these beginner players. Reducing the number of teams would mean hindering the performance growth of many young players who would then lose the opportunity to compete in leagues that match their skill levels.
The Czech Table Tennis Association establishes so-called Youth Sports Centers (SCM) at the most successful clubs in the country, where Czech national youth representatives are trained under the supervision of the best coaches. One of these five centers is also based here at our club.
Our players regularly bring home not only medals but also championship titles from the Czech National Championships. This places our club among the most successful in the entire Czech Republic, and we are justifiably proud of our players. The pinnacle of our efforts is the development of players for the Czech youth national teams. Here, too, we have achieved excellent results.
In recent years, for example, Ondřej Bajger won a bronze medal in the cadet team event alongside another SCM homegrown player, Michal Beneš, and a bronze medal in mixed doubles with Moldovan player Sofia Polcanova at the European Youth Championships (EYCH) in Prague in 2009. In 2012, he became the junior Vice-Champion of Europe in mixed doubles together with Tamara Tomanová. Thanks to his European ranking, he also had the opportunity to participate in the Junior World Championships in Colombia, Bahrain, India, and the first Youth Olympic Games in Singapore. Tibor Pavlík also earned a medal at the EYCH. This left-handed talent can boast the title of Vice-Champion of Europe in the cadet team event, which he achieved together with David Reitšpies in 2011 in Kazan, Russia.
In 2013, Patrik Klos and Jiří Martinko achieved great success at the EYCH in Ostrava. At that time, the cadet representatives, together with Tomáš Polanský, won the gold medal in the team event. They followed up this achievement three years later in Zagreb, Croatia, where they won silver medals as juniors. In 2018, cadet Adam Štalzer also won a medal at the European Youth Championship—a bronze in mixed doubles alongside Linda Záděrová.
Besides Štalzer, Tomáš Martinko and František Onderka have been very successful not only at the club level but especially on the international stage, dominating all major domestic youth competitions. Currently, their positions are held by their younger successors: Vít Kadlec, Radim Morávek, and his younger brother Jindřich Morávek.
In the beginner's group, we already see several other talents whom we aim to gradually develop up to SCM and national team level. We believe that our club's comprehensive youth development system will continue to guarantee the nurturing of homegrown players for our Extraliga team in the future.
Zbyněk Bajger
Head Youth Coach
