Teqball targets the 2028 Olympics

Teqball is a recent invention: according to the English-language Wikipedia page dedicated to the sport, the idea to create this discipline came in 2012 to three Hungarian football fans – former professional player Gábor Borsányi, businessman György Gattyán and computer scientist Victor Huzar. As many of us did in the endless hours of winter physical education, Borsani was enjoying soccer at the table tennis table, but he realized the ball wasn’t satisfactorily jumping. At that point, he had an epiphany: Why not try to fold the table, to create the right conditions for the ball to bounce. Always, And also to make the game more fun? This is how this new sport was born, which unlike traditional sports is associated with a company: only Teqball International or other franchisees who have purchased a license from Teqball Holding SARL can produce game tables; The term “Teqball” itself is a registered trademark.

Launched in 2016, in Budapest, with an exceptional testimony: Ronaldinho Gaucho. From there, the development was unstoppable: on its official website, the International Federation defines Teqball as “the fastest growing sport in the world”; United States Federation President Ajay Noso said thousands of athletes play in 118 countries. The official numbers are also eloquent: in Budapest in 2017, the first world championships were held (in men’s and women’s singles, in men’s and women’s and mixed doubles), players from 20 different countries were registered; The following year, the event was held in Reims, France, and featured over 90 players; In 2019, 160 athletes representing 58 countries competed again in Budapest. After the 2020 edition was postponed due to the pandemic, the last edition of the tournament was held in Poland in December 2021.

After this explosion of interest, the creators of Teqball – but also its fans – want to cap this growth by reaching a goal unimaginable until just a few years ago: getting the sport into the Olympic programme, presumably beginning with the Los Angeles 2028 release. The path seems clear: in 2018 Recognition by the Olympic Council of Asia, which included Teqball in the program of the 6th Asian Beach Games, which was supposed to take place in 2020 in Sanya, China, and then on has arrived. postponed due to the pandemic; Things went even better in 2019, when the Confederation of National Olympic Committees of Africa decided to hold the Techpool tournament as part of the African Beach Games, which were held in Cape Verde in 2019; The next step, and perhaps the most important from the Olympic point of view, was the recognition of the European Olympic Committees, which included Tekpol in the program of the European Games to be held next year in Krakow. It’s inevitable to think that this track could really lead this mix of football and table tennis to the Olympics in Los Angeles.