Truls Möregårdh is gearing up for the European Championship in Linz, Austria, this week. This comes after a season that has been sportingly brilliant – but also tough.
The travels as a table tennis player are always exhausting. There is a lot of traveling and especially this year, there has been an incredible amount of traveling to Asia, which we have had to handle in a way that we are not entirely used to, says the 22-year-old.
Earlier in October, he was in China to play the WTT Grand Smash in Beijing. After that, he traveled back to Sweden to play in the Table Tennis League before heading to Austria for the European Championship.
It has been overly much. An all too tough schedule, he says.
"Falling apart and getting hurt"
Möregårdh says that he loves playing in Asia. But he wishes that the schedule for next season looks different.
There are no problems for me to go to Asia. That's where we want to play table tennis and that's where the hype is the greatest. Above all in China, where we have been a lot.
But it must not become too much traveling back and forth. It will wear us down in a bad way. Hopefully, one can find more solutions, such as an Asia tour, so that one can stay there for a month, maybe, so that one avoids traveling back home all the time.
He believes that it would have been a more favorable setup.
It takes a toll on the body, you fall apart and get hurt. But also mentally, that you think it's tough with table tennis, and it shouldn't be that way.
Aiming for new medals
Despite all the travels. Möregårdh feels that he is in good form and is very pleased with the tournament in Beijing, which ended in the quarterfinals. He is particularly pleased with his consistency.
That's what you strive for. To find the development in the game so that you become better and get a more stable game. Now I shouldn't jinx anything here, but it was fun that it felt that way, and hopefully, it feels the same in the future.
Now, the European Championship awaits. The first national team competition since the summer's failure under the Olympic Games in Paris.
I want to win a medal for Sweden. That's what I always aim for.
Takes place on October 15-20 in Linz, Austria. Decided in the classes women's singles, men's singles, women's doubles, men's doubles, and mixed doubles.
Sweden's squad:
Women: Linda Bergström, Stina Källberg, Filippa Bergand, Matilda Hansson, Alma Rööse.
Men: Truls Möregårdh, Anton Källberg, Mattias Falck, Kristian Karlsson, Simon Berglund.
