A perfect sensation – the Werner Schlager Academy is officially honoured with the „Academy Status“ of the ITTF International Training Centre Network. Only the WSA is evaluated on the same level as Shanghai!

What an amazing Friday, the 13^th for the Werner Schlager Academy. Just some minutes ago Werner Schlager Academy’s CEO, Martin Sörös, has received the information from the ITTF that the Werner Schlager Academy – 4 years after its opening – will be honoured with the official “Academy Status”.

In September the biggest sport federation worldwide ITTF (222 members) asked all countries and training centres to apply for the International Training Centre Network. Following a very strict selection procedure the ITTF only accepted 12 trainings centre applications from 8 countries. All accepted applications were categorised in 4 different categories. The number 1 in table tennis, China, has besides Shanghai two additional training centres: Chengdu (category 2) and Zhengding (category 3). Sweden has two training centres, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Denmark and Austria one centre each within Europe. In the US (2 centres) and New Zealand (1 centre) the ITTF declared members of the International Training Centre Network as well.

Category 4: Table Tennis HOT SPOT

Category 3: ELITE Training Centre

Category 2: HIGH PERFORMANCE Training Centre

Category 1: Table Tennis ACADEMY

For the Werner Schlager Academy this reward has another great meaning as the only other centre which received the highest category and the platinic badge is the extraordinary Chinese Table Tennis College at the Shanghai University.

Besides the excellent training possibilities at the Werner Schlager Academy the ITTF rated the high-class coaches’ structure led by the Head Coaches Dirk Wagner (Men) and Neven Cegnar (Women) at the WSA very positively.

Furthermore the close co-operation with the WSA partner club SVNÖ STRÖCK (which is among the Top 3 in Europe for more than 5 years now) and the extraordinary internationality of the training centre in Schwechat. No less than 26 languages are spoken at the WSA which also influenced the decision of the ITTF.

“This is a definitely the ‘knightly accolade’ for the WSA. Now we are officially rewarded as Academy and ranked on the same level as Shanghai. This is an unbelievable reward for us and the whole WSA-team. And of course the obligation to further improve the training quality at the WSA”, said WSA-CEO Martin Sörös.

Being rewarded as Academy within the ITTF International Training Centre Network the WSA is not only internationally recognized as training centre of excellence, but can also attract more international top level players to visit the WSA and make economical use of it.

Already in the next days the WSA will sign a cooperation paper for closer co-operation and agree on an activity plan for the years 2016 and 2017. Therewith the existing close co-operation between ITTF and WSA will be upgraded to the next level.