Władysławowo and Sarajevo Awarded 2028 European Under 13 and Under 21 Championships

The ETTU announcement arrived on a winter morning in Beijing. I was sitting in my small apartment, beside me a stack of old notes about Asian youth tournaments, when my phone lit up. The Executive Board of the European Table Tennis Union had just settled two venues for 2028: Władysławowo in Poland would host the European Under 13 Championships, and Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina would take the European Under 21 Championships. Two cities, two countries, two age tiers, one year.

This is the kind of news that, if skimmed, makes people nod and turn the page. No star is named. No match is predicted. Not a single spin-rate figure, forehand-winning percentage, or transfer fee is mentioned. There is only a tidy administrative decision: this event goes to that city, in 2028.

But after thirty-four years holding a pen, I have learned one thing: the announcements that look dullest are sometimes where the skeleton of an entire sport shows most clearly. Choosing where to stage an U13 event is not about choosing a venue. It is about choosing the place where someone will teach a twelve-year-old how to grip a racket, how to place a foot, how to nurture a first reflex. And choosing where to stage an U21 event is choosing where a young athlete will learn to become an adult.

The ETTU chose Władysławowo and Sarajevo. Those two choices say a great deal about how Europe thinks about its own future.

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Two names, one year, two age tiers

The ETTU is the continental governing body for table tennis, sitting above the national associations and below the International Table Tennis Federation. At its highest level is the Executive Board — the decision-making body that approves policy and allocates hosting rights for European Championships. When the Executive Board settles a venue, that is a purely governance-driven decision, not a vote based on a public scoreboard. There is no ranking table against which to compare candidates. No quantified criteria are published alongside it. There is only a conclusion reached and an announcement issued.

For someone in my trade, that discretion is both admirable and troubling. Admirable, because it shows an internal process standardized over many years. Troubling, because fans — the people who will ultimately sit in the stands — have no way of understanding why this city was chosen and that one left behind.

The first notable point is timing. The award for events taking place in 2028 was announced more than two years in advance. In an industry where calendars are routinely upended by pandemics, format changes, and sudden overhauls, settling venues this early is a signal of stability. The ETTU wants to tell its member associations: you have time to prepare. You have time to build arenas, to train referees, to train volunteers, to develop your youth squads. This is the kind of long-range planning that developed sporting nations typically do, and it stands in contrast to the patchwork, last-minute approach.

The second notable point is distribution. Two championships were awarded to two different countries. One is a nation with a solid sporting tradition and well-funded training infrastructure — Poland. The other is a smaller country whose table tennis is still finding its footing — Bosnia and Herzegovina. If the ETTU were only optimizing commercial returns, it might have concentrated both events in a large Western European hub with audiences, sponsors, and broadcasters. Splitting them this way reveals a different logic: a development logic, a diffusion logic.

The third notable point is the two age tiers. U13 is the earliest identification tier. U21 is the transition tier toward the senior national team. Placing these two events side by side in the same year reveals a complete pipeline: from the moment a child first steps onto an international stage to the moment that child prepares to enter the adult game. It is a continuous chain, not scattered fragments.

But to understand why these two specific names were chosen, I need to leave the desk and go to the places themselves. And I begin with Poland.

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Cetniewo: where Polish table tennis learns to breathe

Władysławowo is a town on the Baltic coast, in northern Poland, in the Pomerania region. It is home to the famous Hel peninsula, where sea and land meet along a slender strip of sand. But for Polish sport, the more memorable name is Cetniewo — the national sports training center located right in this town.

Cetniewo is not a table tennis arena. It is a sprawling complex of training halls, courts, and accommodation blocks, built to serve many sports at once. Table tennis is one of them. And precisely because of that, when the ETTU awarded the 2028 European U13 Championship to Władysławowo, it was not merely awarding an event. It was awarding an opportunity for a multi-sport training center to become a gathering point for the continent's youth table tennis.

I have had occasion to follow some of the training camps held at centers like this, and I understand their value. In a city arena, a child arrives, plays a match, and leaves. At a center like Cetniewo, a child arrives, stays for days, eats together, trains together, sleeps together, and learns things that are in no coaching manual. They learn to observe another child from another country, with a different grip, a different way of turning the body. They learn to lose in front of friends and to win without arrogance. Those lessons cannot be measured in points, but they stay for an entire career.

For Polish table tennis, hosting the European U13 Championship has a more specific meaning. Poland is a country with a strong organizational tradition and stable infrastructure, but it has not always been among Europe's leaders in youth table tennis results. Hosting a tournament at home is a way to bring spectators closer to the sport, so that families with young children see role models, so that local clubs have an incentive to recruit more trainees. In the sports industry, people call this the transmission effect: a major event creates a small wave, and that wave reaches schools, cultural centers, and neighborhood playgrounds.

Cetniewo also has a feature that makes it suitable for an U13 event: seclusion. A twelve-year-old competing in a quiet coastal town will be less distracted than one competing in a major metropolis. At that age, what matters most is the ball, the table, the coach, the teammates. Everything else is noise. And noise, for a child, is usually the enemy.

One thing I always remind myself when analyzing a youth event is this: do not look at the glamour of the host venue; look at the structure it creates. Władysławowo is not a glamorous destination. It is a laboratory. And laboratories are rarely beautiful, but they are where important things are made.

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Sarajevo and the memory of a city that would not kneel

If Władysławowo evokes the image of a quiet training hall, Sarajevo evokes a far heavier history. It is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a city once at the center of great upheavals in the twentieth century. Its name is bound to memories that all of Europe would rather not recall. But precisely because of that, Sarajevo's award of the 2028 European U21 Championship carries a layer of meaning far beyond a sporting decision.

The venue mentioned is Arena Hills. It is a modern arena built to serve many kinds of events, from sport to culture. For a European U21 Championship, such an arena is entirely suitable technically: enough room for spectators, enough space for the competition area, enough infrastructure for media.

But the true value of this decision is not in the arena. It is in the message. When a continental federation awards a European Championship to a Balkan country, that federation is saying: European table tennis does not belong only to the traditional centers. It belongs to every place where someone wants to play.

For many years, I have watched how continental federations allocate events, and I have noticed a pattern. Major events with high commercial value tend to go to countries with large audiences, pay television, and big sponsors. Youth events, with lower commercial value, tend to be used as a tool for expanding the map. That is not injustice. It is strategy. A federation that wants to survive in the long term must sow seeds in soil that has not yet been plowed.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is such soil. The table tennis base here does not have the depth of Germany, Sweden, or France. But it has people. And in table tennis, the most important thing is always people — a child gripping a racket in a cultural center on the outskirts of Sarajevo can become anything, if they have the chance to see an international tournament in their own city.

I remember an evening in Doha in 2026. While my colleagues jostled for seats at the football World Cup final, I left the stadium to visit a migrant-worker compound on the city's outskirts. In a small tea house, a group of Nepali workers were watching the third-place match on an old television. When a player scored, a forty-five-year-old man told me: We watch because we are also far from home. That sentence followed me for years, and it taught me that sport does not belong only to the winners. It belongs to those who find themselves in it.

With Sarajevo, I think the same holds true. A European U21 Championship here will not generate millions of dollars. It will not change the world rankings. But it will make a child in a small Bosnian town realize that table tennis is not someone else's sport. It is theirs.

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The hosting map and the logic of distribution

To fully understand the ETTU's decision, I need to place it in the larger picture of European table tennis. For decades, European table tennis was led by a familiar group of nations: Germany, Sweden, France, Austria, Belgium, and a few Eastern European countries with long traditions such as Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania. These nations accounted for most of the European Championship places, most of the medals, and most of the media attention.

But that map is changing. The rise of Asian table tennis, especially China, Japan, and South Korea, has created pressure that Europe is forced to answer. That answer cannot be merely better coaching at a few leading centers. It must be base expansion. Because in a sport where talent density determines success, a continent with only a few strong centers will always lose to a continent with dozens of strong centers.

From that angle, awarding the U13 event to Poland and the U21 event to Bosnia and Herzegovina is a move within a broader strategy. It is a diversification strategy, with three layers. The first layer is geographic: pulling events out of Western Europe, toward Eastern Europe and the Balkans. The second layer is infrastructural: encouraging smaller countries to invest in arenas, training halls, and organizing teams. The third layer is human: creating a generation of young athletes who grow up in the atmosphere of international tournaments on their own soil.

These three layers combine into an effect I call the reverse slide: instead of letting talent flow from small places to big places, the federation creates conditions for talent to sprout on the spot. It is a slow, expensive, unglamorous approach. But it is the only way for a sport to endure.

I have witnessed something similar at a different scale. Watching youth table tennis in Asia, I noticed that countries that invest in youth events — even small, sparsely attended ones — tend to have a stronger successor generation. Not because they have more innate talent, but because they create more opportunities for talent to be seen, tested, defeated, and matured.

The ETTU, by awarding two events to two different countries, is doing the same at continental scale. It is not choosing the easiest places. It is choosing the places that need it most.

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2028 and the shadow of the Olympics

There is one detail I cannot overlook, and it matters more than it appears: 2028 is an Olympic year. The 2028 Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, in the United States. That means the entire sporting world will direct its attention to America that summer, and every other event must accept standing in its shadow.

For table tennis, an Olympic year carries particular significance. It is the year when Olympic places are determined, when national teams pour in full effort, when top stars focus intensely. Against that backdrop, the two European U13 and U21 Championships will have to compete for the attention of media, audiences, and member associations themselves.

This is a foreseeable risk. If a European U21 Championship is staged at the same time as a pre-Olympic event, it will likely be overshadowed. National-team coaches may have to weigh sending young players to the U21 event against keeping them home to focus on the Olympic cycle. Media outlets may direct resources to the Olympics and skip the youth events.

But from another angle, placing two youth events in an Olympic year could also be a deliberate choice. Because an Olympic year is the year when the whole continent talks about table tennis the most. It is the year when a twelve-year-old sits in front of the television watching their national team play and dreams. If, in that same year, that child also knows that back home, right in their own town, there will be a European Championship for their age group, the dream becomes closer. It is no longer an image on a screen. It is a real arena, a few kilometers from home.

I have learned, over years of observation, that the timing of an event matters no less than the event itself. A tournament in the right place but at the wrong time can become invisible. A tournament in both the right place and the right time can create a wave. The ETTU has chosen a moment full of risk and full of opportunity. The remaining question is whether it has the capacity to turn risk into opportunity.

And this is where I need to state plainly something many in the industry avoid. A youth event does not automatically produce talent. It only produces a stage. Without a coaching system behind it — coaches good enough, clubs resourced enough, families patient enough — that stage will be empty. The lights are on, but there is no one to shine.

That is why I always look at the submerged part of the iceberg. An announcement about a host venue is only the visible part. The submerged part is thousands of hours of children's training, hundreds of coaching sessions by teachers, decades of investment by national federations. If the submerged part is not large enough, the visible part will sink with it.

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Two tiers of the pipeline: U13 to find, U21 to transition

What interests me most in the ETTU's decision is that it placed side by side two very different age tiers: U13 and U21. These tiers differ not only in age. They differ in function.

U13 is the identification tier. At this age, the most important thing is not winning or losing, but discovery. National-team coaches come to an U13 event not to find a champion. They come to find children with special qualities: a decisive swing, an unusually quick reflex, a way of reading spin that other children do not have. These qualities cannot be measured by a scoreboard. They can only be seen by the eye of an experienced teacher.

At the U13 tier, people talk about potential. At the U21 tier, people talk about results. A twenty-year-old has passed the basic-learning stage. They have their own playing style, their own technical system, their own international experience. The European U21 Championship is where it is assessed whether they are strong enough to step into the adult game. A semifinal place at the European U21 level is often a signal that the athlete is ready to be called up to the senior national team.

When the ETTU stages both tiers in the same year, it is creating continuity. A twelve-year-old competing in Władysławowo in 2028 could, nine years later, compete at another European U21 Championship. If they stay in the system, if they are nurtured properly, they will travel the entire length of the pipeline. And each time they pass a point, they are seen again, assessed again, invested in again.

I call this structure the roadside beacon system. At each stage of the journey, a light is lit to tell the athlete: you are heading the right way, keep going. Many sports fail not because of a lack of talent, but because of a lack of those lights. A gifted child grows up in the dark, and by the time anyone notices, it is too late.

This is especially important in table tennis, a sport where technique is formed very early. In table tennis, grip habits, movement patterns, and first reflexes are usually shaped before the age of thirteen. After that age, correction becomes far harder. That is why an U13 event is not just a tournament. It is a chance to intervene at the golden stage of technical development.

There is a truth I always remind myself of when analyzing youth events: we cannot know who will succeed. An U13 champion can vanish after five years. A child who finished thirty-second at U13 can become a European champion at twenty-five. Table tennis is that cruel a sport. But precisely because of that, staging events like this matters more. Because we do not know who will succeed, we must create opportunities for as many as possible.

Władysławowo and Sarajevo, from this angle, are not two venues. They are two links in a long chain, a chain that begins with a child picking up a racket for the first time and ends, perhaps, at an Olympic medal.

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Seen from Asia: the gap is not in the host venue

Living and working in Beijing, I have an advantage many European colleagues lack: I see European table tennis from the outside. And seen from the outside, the ETTU story takes on a different color.

In Asia, especially in China, the youth table tennis development system operates on a very different logic. It is a centralized, large-scale system, tightly organized from school level to provincial level to national level. A gifted child in China can be identified very early and placed on a structured development path, with thousands of training hours, dedicated coaches, and peers of equal standard everywhere.

Japan has a different system, relying more on clubs and schools, but it is also highly effective. South Korea has a system centered on national training centers. What the three share is density: there are many children playing table tennis, and there are many rivals to compete against.

Europe does not have that density. The continent's population is large, but the number of children playing table tennis seriously is far smaller than in Asia. That is the real gap, and it cannot be solved by staging a few more tournaments. It can only be narrowed by increasing the number of players.

And here is the point I want to emphasize: the ETTU's decision is not an attempt to confront Asia on short-term results. It is an attempt to build a long-term base. In the race between table tennis nations, results are the final outcome, but the base is the foundation. A country can produce one extraordinary talent through luck. But to produce a generation of talent, it needs a system.

Awarding the U13 event to Poland and the U21 event to Bosnia and Herzegovina is a way to expand the system. Each tournament staged in a new country is another occasion for the sport to be introduced to new children, new families, new schools. It is a slow process, but it is the only process.

I often ask myself: what made China a table tennis power? The answer is not in any single star. It is in the millions of children who once picked up a racket, the hundreds of thousands of coaches who once taught, the thousands of tournaments once staged at every level. Europe is trying to follow a similar path, at a smaller scale and in a different way. And events like the 2028 European U13 Championship are part of that path.

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Where Vietnam stands in this picture

As a Vietnamese writing about table tennis, I cannot look at this European picture without asking about my own homeland. Vietnam has a table tennis scene with notable achievements in Southeast Asia, but it still lags behind the Asian powers. We have talented athletes, dedicated coaches, but we lack a youth development system of scale and depth.

Looking at how the ETTU allocates hosting rights, I see a lesson that could apply to Vietnam. The lesson is: do not wait for talent to appear; create the environment in which talent emerges. A youth tournament staged in a distant province, in a small city, may bring no revenue, but it can bring a new generation of athletes. Because in those places, a child sees an international table tennis tournament for the first time, and a simple thought arises: I could do that too.

That is the power of presence. A sport exists in a child's mind only when it is seen. If table tennis appears only on television, it is something distant, belonging to others. If it appears right at the town stadium, it is something within reach.

Europe is doing that with Władysławowo and Sarajevo. Vietnam can learn from that approach, even at a far smaller scale. The important thing is not to imitate. The important thing is to understand the principle: for a sport to grow, seeds must be sown in many places, not only where flowers already bloom.

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The economics of a youth event

There is a question people in my trade always face when writing about youth events: is it worth caring about? Does a European U13 Championship matter economically, or is it a small event that only parents and coaches notice?

The answer, as with everything in sport, lies in the layer of impact. A youth event does not generate large revenue from broadcast rights. It does not attract global sponsors. It does not fill a fifty-thousand-seat stadium. But it produces other effects, smaller yet more durable.

The first effect is on infrastructure. To stage a European Championship, a city must upgrade its arena, training halls, lighting, sound system, media area, and athlete accommodation. These upgrades do not vanish when the event ends. They remain and serve the community for years.

The second effect is on sports tourism. When an international tournament is staged, it draws athletes, coaches, referees, journalists, and parents from many countries. They stay in hotels, eat in restaurants, shop at local stores. For a coastal town like Władysławowo, this can generate a meaningful source of income during the season.

The third effect, and in my view the most important, is on sports human capital. An international tournament needs hundreds of volunteers, dozens of referees, dozens of officials. These people are trained, gain experience, and then become resources for subsequent events. A city that has staged a European U13 event will have enough experience to stage an U21 event, then a higher-level event.

That is how a city becomes a sports hub. Not by a single leap, but by a process of accumulation. Władysławowo and Sarajevo are beginning that process.

But I must say plainly something optimists often overlook: not every city that stages an international event reaps benefits. If the staging is done carelessly, if infrastructure is built without a plan for later use, if the local community is not involved, the event will pass and leave a debt behind. I have seen arenas built for one event and then abandoned. That is the dark side of the sports industry, and it needs to be said.

For Władysławowo, this risk appears low, since Cetniewo is already an active training center. For Sarajevo, the risk is higher, since it is a city with little experience staging major international table tennis events. But precisely because the risk is higher, the decision is more meaningful. It is an investment in a place that needs investing in.

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Transparency and the cost of discretion

There is one aspect of this decision I want to dissect frankly, even if it may cost me the goodwill of some in the industry. That aspect is transparency.

The ETTU announcement states that the Executive Board awarded hosting rights to two cities. It says nothing about the decision-making process. It does not mention other candidates. It does not publish evaluation criteria. It does not explain why Władysławowo was chosen for U13 and Sarajevo for U21, rather than the reverse, or some other combination.

For a sports organization, this is common practice. Hosting decisions are typically made in closed meetings, based on considerations the public is not privy to. Sometimes those considerations are reasonable: a country with better infrastructure, a city with organizing experience, a federation with a strong enough staff. Sometimes they are political: a country that needs encouragement, a region that needs balancing.

The problem is that when the decision-making process is not public, fans have no way to evaluate. They can only trust, or suspect. And in an era when faith in sports organizations is being tested by many scandals, this discretion is a risk.

I am not saying the ETTU did wrong. I have no evidence to say that. What I am saying is: an organization that wants to be trusted must actively create trust. Publishing evaluation criteria does not weaken the authority of the Executive Board. It enhances its credibility. It shows that the decision was made on reasons, not on arbitrariness.

In my trade, I have learned that the truth sometimes lies in what is not said. An announcement that does not mention other candidates may mean there were no other candidates, or it may mean the other candidates were not disclosed. An announcement that does not mention criteria may mean there were no criteria, or it may mean the criteria were not shared. I cannot know for certain. And that very uncertainty is what an organization should strive to eliminate.

This matters especially for youth events. Because youth events involve children. And when children are the subject of a decision, there is a higher responsibility to explain that decision. Parents have a right to know why their children will have to travel to this city rather than another. Smaller federations have a right to know why they were not chosen. Transparency is not a concession. It is part of responsibility.

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The small-town story and what it conceals

And this is where I want to offer a counter-current view, because I believe an honest writer must say even what is hard to hear.

The story we are usually told about decisions like this is the story of diffusion, of opportunity, of small towns being allowed to shine. It is a beautiful story. But it often conceals a harder reality: in sport, diffusion does not always mean development. Sometimes it is merely the dispersal of resources.

Imagine two scenarios. In the first, the ETTU concentrates resources to build one or two truly strong youth development centers, with top coaching staff, continuous training programs, and the ability to attract talent from across the continent. In the second, the ETTU disperses events across many countries, each with one event, but none with enough resources to build a truly strong center.

Which scenario is better? The answer is not simple. The first concentrates resources and may produce results faster, but it abandons territories without a center. The second broadens opportunity but may dilute quality. The truth is, sports organizations often must choose between these two paths, and their choice reflects their values.

The ETTU's choice of the second scenario — dispersing events across two different countries — shows it prioritizes diffusion over concentration. That is a choice defensible on values. But it is not immune to criticism. A critic might say: instead of staging two events in two places with modest infrastructure, why not invest in one place to create a benchmark? A defender might answer: a benchmark matters only if it can be replicated, and to replicate it, one must start from many places.

I do not take a side. I only want to say that the beautiful story of small towns shining should not obscure the question of effectiveness. Over the years, I have witnessed sports events staged in places without enough resources, and the result was events held in emptiness, with patchwork infrastructure, leaving behind a not-so-positive public impression. That is a real risk, and it needs to be put on the table.

This is especially true of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a country whose economy still faces many difficulties, whose sports infrastructure has not been evenly invested in, and which has little experience staging major international table tennis events. Awarding it the 2028 European U21 Championship is a bet. If it succeeds, it will be an inspiring story. If it fails, it will be a lesson about giving too much to a place not yet ready.

I am not saying Bosnia will fail. I am saying we should watch. Because in my trade, caution is not pessimism. It is respect for the truth. And the truth is, a beautiful administrative decision becomes an achievement only when it is carried out successfully.

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What to watch over the next two years

Between now and 2028, there are several milestones that anyone interested in European table tennis should watch. These milestones are not merely technical details. They are signs of whether the ETTU's decision is being carried out properly.

The first milestone is infrastructure-preparation progress. When a city receives hosting rights, it begins a multi-year upgrade process. If that process runs on schedule, it is a good sign. If there are delays, or if there is an announcement of a venue change, that is a worrying sign.

The second milestone is the structure of the calendar. In the Olympic year 2028, the calendar will be very tight. Where the two European youth events are placed in that calendar will show the priority the ETTU gives them. If they are placed at favorable times, that is a positive signal. If they are pushed into less-noticed windows, that is a sign they are merely secondary events.

The third milestone is the participation of strong teams. If Europe's leading countries send their best young athletes, that is a sign the event is taken seriously. If they leave their best at home to focus on the Olympics, that is a sign the event is regarded as secondary.

The fourth milestone is transparency in communication. If the ETTU publishes more information about the decision-making process and evaluation criteria, that is a sign the organization is listening to concerns about transparency.

I will watch all these milestones, not because I want to find fault, but because I believe a sport can only grow when it is scrutinized by those who care. Scrutiny is not hostility. It is a form of care.

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Freezing the memory

In my trade, there is a habit I always keep, even though it sometimes costs me time. It is the habit of freezing a moment and holding it, like a photograph, so that later I can look back and understand what actually happened.

The moment I want to freeze this time is not a rally, but a decision. A winter morning in Beijing, two names read aloud: Władysławowo and Sarajevo. Behind those two names is a twelve-year-old who does not yet know who they are, and a twenty-year-old standing at the threshold of a career. Neither yet knows that, in 2028, a tournament will be staged for them, in a place they may never have heard of today.

In table tennis, we tend to measure everything by medals, by points, by rankings. But there are things that cannot be measured by those yardsticks. A child sees an international tournament for the first time in their life, and a thought arises in their head. That thought has no points. It has no medal. But it is the seed of everything.

The ETTU awarded the 2028 European U13 Championship to Władysławowo, and the 2028 European U21 Championship to Sarajevo. It is an administrative decision, made in a meeting, announced in a bulletin. But if we look beyond that bulletin, we see what European table tennis is trying to do: it is trying to sow seeds in soil not yet plowed, in the hope that one day those seeds will bloom into flowers.

Whether they bloom, no one knows in advance. But one thing is certain: if no one sows, nothing grows. And sometimes, the act of sowing — small, unglamorous, unnoticed — is the most important act of all.

I will keep this photograph. A winter morning, two unfamiliar names, and a belief that European table tennis is heading in the right direction — or at least, trying to.