#2 – Dan O’Connell: Full-Time Table Tennis in Germany

In episode two I’m joined by Welsh table tennis player Dan O’Connell. Dan is currently ranked number one in Wales and finds himself just outside the top 600 players in world.

He returned just over a week ago from the World Championships in Suzhou, China where he reached the last 32 of the mixed doubles with teammate Charlotte Carey.

During the show we talk about Dan’s experience of spending two years training full-time in Germany. We have seen a number of our most promising players move to Germany recently and Dan gives us an insight into what life is like over there and how he managed to find a club to play for and somewhere to stay.

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • How Dan first began playing table tennis.
  • Why he decided to move away to Grantham at 16 and then Germany at 20.
  • How he arranged his move to Germany.
  • The differences between table tennis in the UK and Germany.
  • What a typical training day in one of Germany’s table tennis centres entails.
  • His future plans now that he is back in Wales.
  • Who is suited to moving abroad to one of these training centres for full-time table tennis.

Links from the episode:

Thanks for listening!

Thank you so much for joining us. I really hope you enjoyed the show.

As we are a new podcast it would really help us out if you could go and leave us an honest review on iTunes. It’s very simple to do and will help us to get noticed in the crowded world of podcasting.

A big thank you to Dan for joining me on this episode and I’ll have the next one ready soon.