Yuki Kamizuru: Thoughts at the Turn of the Year.
The holidays during Christmas and New Year’s give us an opportunity to reflect the past and prepare for upcoming tasks.
2009 has been a colorful and good year for Tamasu Butterfly, but not without a good amount of work, together with our partners, colleagues and friends. One of the many activities Butterfly enrolled in involved youth programs.
For example, we care a lot about “Ping Pong Paz”, a Colombia-based program by the ITTF. In the socially deprived areas of Colombian cities, table tennis offers distraction to the children, the most innocent of all victims of armed conflicts. “Ping Pong Paz” playfully conveys values like tolerance, fair play and social interaction. The Monaco-based organization “Peace and Sport” under the patronage of Prince Albert II. of Monaco was awarded as “best peace project from an international sports federation” in November.
Butterfly sponsors the most important international events in competitive youth sports. We supply World Youth Championships and the complete ITTF Junior Circuit including the finals of the Cadet-Challenge series. The contract as official ball sponsor runs at least until 2012.
The World Championships in Yokohama took an eminent position in 2009 where Butterfly became official sponsor (ball and table) along with San-Ei (table). On an athletic note, Japanese Butterfly aces Jun Mizutani and Seiya Kishikawa played an outstanding part by winning the bronze medal in the doubles competition.
Our web site and our newsletter have always recognized the athletic successes of our “Butterflies”. Let’s take a look at three athletes who stood out impressively during 2009, as representatives for countless medals and titles of our players. Zhang Yining has been, without a doubt, world’s best athlete for years and has collected all major titles including this year’s world’s singles championship. Michael Maze is known as a master of efficiency, being able to prepare himself so that he can give his best performance on the day of his competition. He demonstrated his strengths by winning his first European championships title, thus extending his collection of Olympic Games as well as world and European championships medals. Last but not least, Timo Boll deserves a great deal of respect. It is remarkable how our German Butterfly partner found his way back to the top of the world after a long injury break, showing his exceptional skills once again by winning the Super Cup, the Polish Open title and reaching the finals of the Tournament of Champions.
One of the main philosophies of Tamasu Butterfly is to draw the right conclusions from the past ensuring a continuous quality and innovating products according to the needs of the future. In 2010, the permanent exchange and professional teamwork with athletes, coaches and material experts will also be a matter of course. The two Chinese youngsters, World Cup winner Liu Shiwen and two time World Championships medalist Zhang Jike, as well as the experienced European player Adrian Crisan will hunt for medals as new members of the successful Butterfly team.
Butterfly will not only supply the official game ball at the 2010 World Team Championships in Moscow, but also continue last year’s support with the event’s host, the Russian table tennis federation TTFR. Of course, we will turn our attention to youth projects in the new year as well. While continuing “Ping Pong Paz” in Colombia, we will also initiate the “ITTF World Hopes Team” project as main sponsor together with the ITTF. In 2010 and 2011, it will supply young talents born in 1998 and 1999 with excellent training methods and offer opportunities to compare their strengths on an international level.
This newsletter features one of the technical novelties of 2010, which, from now on, will be incorporated in our web site.
You see, there is still work to do. Hence we will strive for the best quality and continue the high expertise. Please let us know in case you feel that we fail to deliver on this promise. Let’s improve together because your support makes sure that we can react to your distinct wishes.
I wish you a peaceful and successful Happy New Year 2010.
Yours sincerely,
Hideyuki Kamizuru