“Copyright © 2014 John Upham Photography”

Hi, my name is Tom Davis I’m seventeen and I’m an Irish para table tennis player from Leixlip, Kildare.

I started playing table tennis at the age of ten in club Donic. I rose through the ranks of Irish table tennis gaining a place on the national junior able bodied team. I represented Ireland numerous times, most recently playing in the European youth championships in Italy. This is a summary of how we got on.

http://www.irishtabletennis.com/itta/news/article/european

_youth_championships_2014_team_events_report/

But I was also born with club feet (where my feet are turned in) I had many operations on it, but it left me with a small disability, enabling me to play class 10 in para table tennis. Up until when I was asked to play in para table tennis I only played able bodied events, I am currently the no.1 junior in Ireland. I played my first two international para tournaments in June of this year. They were the Spanish open and Romanian open. Spain went very well for me and I secured two bronze medals in the singles and team events. As a result of these two tournaments I am ranked 32^nd in the world for my class.

On a typical week I would train 10-15 hours as well as fitness training and competitions. I would do more only I’m still in school. Over the summer I have been training even more than this in preparation for tournaments, I attended many camps where I would be training at least four hours a day. Training involves exercises where one side would attack while the other blocks normally in a set pattern (e.g. two forehands, two backhands) that focuses on either movement or technique, we also have multi-ball training where a coach with a box of balls will fire them in different positions as you work on your reflexes.

My goal is to win a medal for Ireland in the 2016 Paralympics.

To qualify for Paralympics 2016 I have to compete in a number of tournaments abroad and improve my world ranking to 16 by the end of 2015.  In order to make it, I need to raise funding to cover my travel to international competitions, 1:1 coaching sessions and sports equipment.

 

It is my dream to win a medal for Ireland at Rio in 2016 and I really feel that I can achieve my goals, but I need your help!!!

“Copyright © 2014 John Upham Photography”