Butterly National Schools Team Championships
Each and every year, the Butterfly National Schools Team Championship is one of London Academy’s two main competition targets. We have always prided ourselves on being the one school in England who produce greater numbers of quality players across the board than any other, year-in year-out.
Unlike many other schools, who focus on one or two teams, London Academy develops teams to challenge in all six competitions that come into our age range. Under 11, Under 13 and Under 16, in both Boys and Girls. We don't just come to make up the numbers. We come to compete, and we compete to win.
We took Gold in the Under 11 Girls, Under 16 Girls, and Under 11 Boys. Our remaining teams, the Under 13 Girls and Under 16 Boys took Silver. Our combined Gold and Silver tallies came to 5. To put this into perspective, no other School in the Country won more than one title.
Junior British League
Our next biggest priority was the Junior British League, a massive, high pressure team tournament that takes place over two weekends throughout the season. We took multiple teams to Derby Arena and Draycott for both weekends.
The Girls A team came incredibly close to retaining their national title, but despite a 4-2 victory over eventual winners Grantham College, they could only manage second place in the Premier Division. Despite this, there were several excellent performances including a win for Soraya Rahmani-Walentynska over the much higher ranked Lowri Hurd.
Senior British League
The 25/26 season was our first where we focused on our Junior players. Our A team was still made of of older club players and a couple of former students. However our remaining three teams were made up of our best juniors.
London Academy 2 and 3 faced off in National Division C(8). they both did very well considering the strength of the opposition with LA 2 coming in third and LA 3 taking 5th place.
Standout players were Adam Riadi and Connor Godley in LA 2, both of whom had 70%+ win rates.
However, the most impressive performance came from London Academy 4 Playing Division D (1). The D division was not based entirely on ranking due on teams being inserted late into the league. There were some extremely strong teams and London Academy took some time finding their feet. Their first weekend was rough, with matches against the top three teams in the division. A single win against Fulham Brunswick was all they had to show for it.
But as the season progressed, the LA players, particularly Rafael Hanzel-Wacker, Stefan Pop and Lewis Macsween, grew into the challenge. Eventually they came joint second, which was an amazing result given the mountain they had to climb.
Training Camps
This year we organised two training camps. The first was a two-week return to Weihai in China in May, and the second took place in July in Stockholm, at the Angby SportsKlub, a large European camp which we have visited many times in the past.
The China trip was a chance for our best players to train in an intense environment, in one of the most advanced and well equipped dedicated table tennis training centres in the world. The trip also allowed for some sight-seeing in the historic Shandong province.
The Swedish trip was chance for our younger and intermediate players to sharpen their skills in a welcoming but challenging environment. The first two days were spent exploring Stockholm, one of. Europe's most beautiful and friendliest capitals.
Both camps were successful, with players working their skills, tactical approaches and the mental aspect of the game.
Open Tournaments
Over the last 4 years London Academy has grown to be one of the biggest tournament venues in the country. But this season was different. For the first time ever we held a 4 Star Open Ranking Event, the highest level of Open tournament in the UK.
Unlike our 2 Star tournaments, which we run monthly, this required levels of organisation and staffing levels that were significantly higher than anything we had run before. We leveraged all of our considerable experience to deliver a highly successful top grade tournament.
This year we also become the first club in in England to run an entirely digital tournament. No hand written score sheets. No manual calculations of results. All of the scores were entered on devices by the umpires and every group and knockout match was entered and updated in real time. This system and our adaptation of it, proved to be a watershed event, and we will be holding digital tournaments exclusively form now on.
Outreach
We continue to host our Outreach tournaments for players who are just starting on their table tennis journey. These tournaments are an incredibly important part of our younger players development. They provide a gateway into the incredible highs and lows of tournaments days, and the thrill and demands of competitive table tennis.
We ran five tournaments throughout the season, with a total of 123 medals handed out throughout the season.