Paralympic table tennis player celebrates medals
A PARALYMPIAN table tennis player who learnt his sport in Widnes clinched two medals in China.
Jack Hunter-Spivey, 24, has been part of the British team competing at the PTT China Open in Hangzhou.
He started playing the sport at a youth club in Widnes and later joined Halton Table Tennis Club.
He won a silver medal in the men’s class 5 event, progressing to the quarter-finals as group winner after 3-0 wins against Norakan Chanpahaka from Thailand, Agus Sutanto from Indonesia and Cheong Lam Sam from Macau.
He went on to beat Toru Nakamoto from Japan 3-1 and the 2017 Asian champion Zhan Dashun from China 3-0 before losing 3-1 to the Paralympic champion from China Cao Ningning.
He said: “I’m really happy with the way I played out here and really pleased to navigate my way through to the final beating some good players on the way.
“This was a big competition for me in terms of qualification for Tokyo and feel I handled the pressure well and it was a great end to the year.”
He then combined with Kentaro Doi and Toru Nakamoto from Japan to take bronze in the men’s class 5.
Hunter-Spivey and his Japanese team mates lost their opening group match 2-0 to the Asian champions from Indonesia, Tatok Hardiyanto and Agus Sutanto.
They progressed to the semi-finals after a 2-0 win against the Macau team of Ip Chi Keong and Chao long Fok and were beaten 2-0 by the Chinese team of Paralympic champion Cao Ningning, 2017 Asian champion Zhan Deshun and 17-year-old Liu Fu.
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