Adham Sharara, president of table tennis' world governing body, favored to introduce the sport's team event into the Olympics but was not sure whether it'll stay in the London Games.

"It's new. We'll analyze if it's successful or not after the Games. If it successes we will continue in the next Olympic Games, maybe with some small adjustment. If it does not success, we can go back and use the doubles again," the chief of the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) told Xinhua in Wednesday's interview.

The table tennis tournament of the Beijing Olympic Games started Wednesday morning with the first round of team event group stage. It's the first time that table tennis plays team events, in stead of the doubles, since the sport entered the Olympic Games 20 years ago.

"I think it (the change) is very good," commented the Canadian. "Traditionally in our sport, there're team events since a very long time ago, and we still have it in world championships. It's association against association, country against country. This kind of feeling is very strong in table tennis.

"Also there's another factor, you know, one country could dominate. In the past, Sweden was dominating, Hungary was dominating, and now China is dominating," he continued. "Therefore In Olympic Games it's not good to have all the finals' players from the same country. It's very boring to the spectators, and also to the players themselves.

"In team events you can only have one entry for one country, so you are sure the final will be two teams from different associations. This is very interesting for the spectators, for the TV and for the national feeling to find one association against another association, one NOC against another NOC."

Asked whether it's another action taken by the ITTF to make table tennis more attractive, Sharara said: "For us, one of the always priority is to make sure that table tennis is played anywhere in the world, not only in the strong countries. So we spend a lot of money to push the development in many countries like in Africa, in Latin America, North America, and Oceania and some parts of Europe and Asia where are not very developed.

"It's important that we have grassroots...For one of the reasons is that they are part of the Olympic Movement, and the Olympic Ideal is participation. This is more important than competition," he said.

But what the ITTF truely cares may be the sport's future in the Olympic Games.

"We like to stay in the Olympic Games for a very long time, so we know that our sport must be active in many many countries," said Sharara. "We now have 205 federations from the world, so we know that we are very strong in the Olympic Movement."

Source:Xinhua