SINGAPORE –In a move to attract and groom local young talent for the national squad, the Singapore Table Tennis Association (STTA) will revamp their training structure to capture the top five under-15 and under-18 boys and girls and commit them to training for a year.

It will be put in place on Jan 1 next year and start by restructuring the national youth team and introducing a new training regime under the Youth Training Squad (YTS).

In the first week of the new year, they will then pick the 20 young paddlers through selection trials and local tournaments such as the SAFRA-STTA Table Tennis, Dr Ng Eng Hen-STTA Table Tennis and Dr Lee Bee Wah Cup-STTA Table Tennis championships.

The trials will be conducted every year to add new batches of promising talent into the national set-up.

Under the YTS, selected paddlers will also have to train for three hours from Monday to Friday between 6.30pm and 9.30pm, and on Saturdays from 9.30am to 12.30pm. Those who repeatedly fail to attend at least four sessions a week will be dismissed.

Said STTA president Ellen Lee: “This new Youth Training Squad was implemented because there is still a gap between the intermediate squads and the national team, and we want to help more young paddlers rise up to the senior squad.”

This is the second time in over a year that the national sports association (NSA) is remaking the youth training structure.

In January 2014 they stopped new intakes for the national youth team as it had failed to groom players for the national squad because they were unable to train regularly because of school competitions and examinations.

A new model replaced it where the top four players train for a stipulated number of hours and participate in local or overseas training stints before they are disbanded at the end of major competitions to train with their respective schools.

Although the system complemented the Singapore Sports School’s School Within A School (SWS), it earned the ire of some parents of players from mainstream schools as they perceived that STTA preferred players from the SWS route.

In December last year, Lee met parents of players from the national youth team, the youth development squad (7 to 12 years old) and SWS programme to address their concerns.

Said the STTA chief: “The latest restructuring took into consideration the concerns of the parents of young paddlers, who still want an avenue that kids can train for progression into national team.

“We always wish for a more permanent fixture for a strong youth squad, but attendance for the previous national youth team was low as the young paddlers were unable to commit to training because of their varying school curriculum. Everyone had different requirements and needs, and that was the main challenge.”

Winston Tay, whose son Maxxe is training with the under-18 squad in the existing set-up, welcomes STTA’s latest plans.

“My kid is in the SWS but I think the restructuring is a fairer system and I don’t foresee anyone criticising it as players are picked on merit and fair play,” he said. “Everyone will stand an equal chance to qualify to get into the YTS.”

Serene Seah, whose 16-year-old son Lucas Tan from Raffles Institution is not under the SWS scheme, said the YTS looks to be better than the current NYT as it gives players overseas exposure.

“I am glad the STTA is opening its door to paddlers who have chosen to go to mainstream schools.”

But as the system is still some eight months away before it is rolled out, the STTA president cautioned it may be tweaked further when it is reviewed after a year.

Added Lee: “This new model has not been tested out yet, so only by running it for awhile, then we will see if it’s well-accepted. The coaches will set their own benchmarks along the way to see if the youth squad is on track.”