Andrzej Hrehorowicz: Kazan Championship organization was best in tournament history 26.06.2010

Moreover organization of this kind of tournament has many finer points and peculiarities as Technical Chair of the European University Sports Association Andrzej Hrehorowicz told to the kazan2013.com correspondent.

- Pan Andrzej, it’s your second visit to Kazan. Yet you first visited our city just about a week ago. What do you think of Kazan, its sports infrastructure?

- Speaking of sports infrastructure I can give my opinion only on table tennis as I first visited Kazan was as a FISU CT Chair. For example the sports complex where the tournament was staged I think is the best one in the four years of the European tournaments. But the most important thing for Kazan is to build the new stadium in three years left before the Universiade. I’ve studied the project recently. In general I can say only good things about Kazan. Your city is very unusual and beautiful.

-You represent the European University Sports Association at the Championship. Could you please explain the main purpose of your visit to our readers?

- In the first place the European University Sports Association’s aim is to establish relations between the European Universities. The Kazan Championship is an excellent opportunity for that: young people from different countries can make friends with each other as they can keep in touch after the tournaments.

- Are you satisfied with the level of the Championship’s organization?

- There is a proverb: he who makes no mistakes, makes nothing. We had no problems. I’ve already expressed my gratitude to the Tournament managers in my speech at the Championship closing ceremony. For sure all the athletes are also content. The Kazan Tournament was the best in the short history of our Championship. This is my personal opinion.

- What do you think of the Championship’s entry list? What’s the difference between this list and the one of the last year tournament?

- There were both the strong teams and the teams of lower level. 18 national teams from 8 countries is a good indicator. Russia is known for its problems in the visa regime. A Turkish team couldn’t participate in the Championship because it had failed to submit the documents in time. The European visa regime is absolutely different that’s why it’s easier to assemble student teams. Besides European students end their academic year in May or June. If you need to obtain visa at that time you may have no time to prepare all the necessary documents. Don’t think that my words sound like a complaint to the tournament organisers. The student national teams should have applied two months prior the Championship. You snooze, you lose.

- Can you estimate the work of the Table Tennis Federation of the Republic of Tatarstan? If it will be proper of course.

- We haven’t had any contacts before the tournament so I cannot make any global estimates. It’s evident that the Tatarstan Federation has enough work to do. And it’s also obvious that they do their work without fail.

- Your Russian is good enough. Not any Pole of your age speaks the language of Pushkin and Tolstoy so well. Where did you learn to speak Russian so nicely?

- Oh, you don’t say that! My Russian is far from perfect. I make a lot of mistakes and don’t even make note of them. Long time ago we learned Russian at school. After that I studied Russian at the university when I majored Economics and I knew a lot of economic terms in Russian. Twenty year lack of practice has consequences. Working in Russia I slowly start to recall Russian. I’m satisfied by that. I hope that in 2013 I’ll have a chance to perfect my language skills.

Alexey Sorokin, special correspondent of press-center
IV European Universities Table Tennis Championship