Recently I travelled the 300km down to the little town of Bairnsdale, in the Eastern part of Victoria, Australia, to conduct a training program for the Gippsland Academy. Ten days later I travelled to the other extremity of Victoria to the towns of Hamilton and Warrnambool.

The Table Tennis part of the Gippsland Academy has been set up recently. Players were invited to a selection day in October last year from which a squad was selected. It has been an interesting experience for me to work with this group of players. Over the last 2 years I have also been working with the South West Academy group in the Western part of Victoria. The changes in the players and their games has been remarkable. The similarities between the two Academies are many and I think the template that is being developed and modified will serve as a good template for others to use and build on.

The Gippsland Academy squad has 16 members from a wide geographical region. Players still need to travel up to 200km to attend training sessions. However the alternative is for them to travel further to get to Melbourne the nearest capital city. In the South West, the travel to Academy sessions is just over 100km compared with up to a 350km journey to Melbourne.

The Academies provide the players with training equivalent to their city based competitors. Although the training isn’t as frequent, it serves the purpose of instilling in the players the knowledge of how to train and the skills that they will require to reach a higher level. It also shows the players that they have people supporting them. In fact now I feel they are getting greater benefits than manny of their city peers in many areas. Both Academies now have access to Strength & Conditioning experts as well as Sports Psychologists. This is something that very few of the city folk will only be able to access at a much later stage of their development.

The main focus on the tables for both Academies has been technique and training habits. The Gippsland Aacdemy is very much about technique. making sure all the players have a good grounding of skills that will enable them to advance to the highest level possible. They have been receiving general programs from Sport Science specialists on Strength and Conditioning, Nutrition and Sports Psychology.

Whilst the South West are relatively well established, we still work a lot on technique but now the focus has changed more to their training skills. How well they can focus on their training and how well they can maintain their concentration during training. The work being done with the Sports Psychologist aids this greatly. Working on the mental skills that will enable them to train better and also perform better on match days.

The PingSkills Vault will be a useful tool for them to use to keep track of their opponents and their training.

The tyrrany of distance is lessened for the players in these Academies and hopefully we will see the ongoing benefits in the development of the players and structures that are put into place that will last a long time to come.