by Simon Daish

Portugal has played host to some of Europe’s major tournaments over the past couple of years with the 2014 European Team Championships being hosted in Lisbon and the 2016 ITTF Europe Top 16 Cup event having taken place in Gondomar and now the country will see the 2017 European Youth Championships head to the city of Guimarães between Friday 14th-Sunday 23rd of July.

The decision to grant Guimarães the honour of being the host city of the 2017 European Youth Championships came following successful talks between the European Table Tennis Union and the Portuguese Table Tennis Federation.

Multiusos de Guimarães will be the official venue for the event; normally used to host Basketball matches the Multiusos de Guimarães arena could see over 20 Table Tennis tables in action during the nine day European Youth Championships.

Guimarães will be the first Portuguese city to host the European Youth Championships and the President of the European Table Tennis Union Ronald Kramer stated that he and his colleagues were satisfied with the final outcome after a thorough inspection of the venue was carried out by the Competition Manager Dimosthenis Messinis

“In our ambition to keep improving the quality of our events and after the excellently organised Youth Championships 2016 in Zagreb, FPTM (Portuguese Table Tennis Federation) informed us of the opportunity to relocate the 2017 EYC (European Youth Championships) to Guimarães. Although I had no doubts about Gondomar, we are very happy with the quality of the Guimarães facilities, which from our Table Tennis point of view appears to be even more adapted to our needs and wishes. We are looking forward to a great event!” – Ronald Kramer.

Rita Fins and Patricia Maciel were the last players from Portugal to win a gold medal at a European Youth Championships following their Junior Girls’ Doubles success at the 2014 competition in Riva Del Garda, Italy. The Portuguese contingent will now have a chance to return to title winning ways in front of their home fans when the 2017 European Youth Championships arrive in Guimarães come July.