Jean-Philippe Gatien, Olympic vice-champion in Barcelona, world champion and former world no.1 in table tennis, has decided to share his experience of the Olympic Games with two young French table tennis hopefuls, Abdel-Kader Salifou (19 years old) and Emmanuel Lebesson (20 years old). Members of the France Promotion group, Abdel-Kader and Emmanuel will be able to attend competitions from all disciplines, discover life in the Olympic Village as well as meet Chinese and International table tennis celebrities.
"When you take part in the Olympic Games for the first time, you’re very impressed by the scale of it all and its distracting environment”, says Jean-Philippe Gatien. “You can easily let yourself be overtaken by events. When they arrive in London in 2012, they will have a clearer idea about this event and will be able to anticipate and take part in the Games without letting themselves be distracted".
This desire to pass on doesn’t stop there. With the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation, the partner of his Ping Attitude association from the outset, Jean-Philippe Gatien had the idea of offering two young people from Saint-Denis who were particularly involved in the association the chance to travel to Beijing. Little budding reporters, Samia (9 years old) and Bilal (11 years old) will follow the journey of Jean-Philippe, Abdel-Kader and Emmanuel to a country where table tennis is a major sport and Jean-Philippe Gatien is a real icon. Camera at the ready, notebook in hand, these youngsters from Ping Attitude will keep a blog on which they will share their experiences and discoveries every day. On their site, there will also be regular post cards from Beijing from Emmanuel, Abdel-Kader and Jean-Philippe Gatien.
That’s a date then, from August 10th, on www.olympingattitude.canalblog.com.
