Jean-Philippe Gatien first picked up a table tennis racket when he was just 5 years old. Over the years, he moved into competitive sport, going on to become the Olympic vice-champion and table tennis world champion. In 2004, after a full and rewarding career, Gatien decided it was time to retire… and set out in a new direction.
In November 2006, with the support of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation and the French Table Tennis Federation, Gatien set up a new association called “Ping Attitude”. Through the association, the ex-world champion aims to introduce the sport of table tennis to young people from disadvantaged districts or who may be going through a difficult time in their lives. He wants to help them to discover all the richness of the sport and the feeling of well-being that playing it can bring.
Table tennis has a unique ability to bring together around a table people from completely different backgrounds and can strengthen links between generations. It’s a sport which could be introduced into schools, colleges and hospitals… indeed, anywhere where sport can help to foster personal balance and growth or promote education.

Table tennis, according to Jean-Philippe Gatien

“Over the course of a long career, table tennis has helped me to reach my sporting peak and to grow and blossom as a human being,” says Jean-Philippe Gatien. “The long road which eventually led me to the very highest level was rich in lessons and human experience. The educational side of the sport, its mixture of social groups and self knowledge make it a wonderful school of life! During my time as a high-level athlete, I regularly got involved in supporting a range of solidarity initiatives. This allowed me to appreciate just how much sport and sportspeople can help to transmit positive values to young people. It also enabled me to understand how the determined actions of a few people can transform a situation and have a lasting impact on society”.

3 ways to win with “Ping Attitude”

The club in Saint-Denis (district 93)
Certain periods in the weekly timetable are set aside for disadvantaged families. The association organizes tournaments, runs sessions to let people get to know the game or improve their skills, and to introduce them to the opportunities that exist to make a career in table tennis and sport in general, in conjunction with the French Table Tennis Federation.

At Maison de Solenn
Jean-Philippe Gatien and the coordinators of Ping Attitude also run a session each week at Maison de Solenn, an establishment in Paris which welcomes adolescents and endeavors to offer a response to the problems they face. This activity is run in the spirit of the cultural support approach developed by the professor Marcel Rufo

As part of an experimental educational project initiated by the Institute for Political Studies in Seine-Saint-Denis
In first-year classes at high schools in Clichy sous Bois and Saint-Ouen, Jean-Philippe Gatien and Michel Gadal, National Technical Director of the French Table Tennis Federation, run workshops which combine sport and education, as well as an initiation to competition and an opportunity to find out about the history of the Olympic movement.