After leaving Russia
For Ovtcharov there’s the table tennis coup
04/15/2022, 06:12 p.m
The farewell to his longtime club comes involuntarily because of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. But table tennis pro Dimitrij Ovtcharov likes the new perspective. In Germany, a spectacular team is built up around him.
Olympic bronze medalist Dimitrij Ovtcharov will return to the German Bundesliga as part of a spectacular table tennis project. Just days after his departure from Russian giants Fakel Orenburg, the former world number one revealed on social media that he, Japanese prodigy Tomokazu Harimoto, Sweden World Cup runner-up Truls Möregardh and also world number six Lin Yun-Ju of Taiwan will play for the TTC Neu-Ulm club, which was only founded in 2019, in the next Bundesliga and Champions League season. Harimoto and Möregardh also confirmed this on their Instagram accounts.
It was “a young but incredibly strong team with which we want to play for the title in the Champions League,” wrote the 33-year-old Ovtcharov. “I’m looking forward to the team, the German fans and the exciting new challenge!”
The TTC Neu-Ulm was only founded in 2019, but thanks to a wildcard it entered the Bundesliga straight away. The first participation in the Champions League followed in 2021, also thanks to a wildcard. Now the club wants to seriously compete with the two German industry leaders Borussia Düsseldorf and 1. FC Saarbrücken.
Media entrepreneur Florian Ebner is behind the club. The specialist portal “my table tennis” has already described the TTC Neu-Ulm as the “RB Leipzig of table tennis”. “We want to make a name for ourselves in the long term and become a European brand,” said Managing Director Michael Kühn to the portal.
Ebner spoke of a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that we didn’t want to miss, of course. Thanks to the charisma of Dima Ovtcharov, to get such talents to Neu-Ulm, who would have imagined it three years ago when we founded our clubs can imagine?”
Ovtcharov played for Orenburg from 2010 to 2022 and won the Champions League four times with the club, which is largely financed by the Russian gas company Gazprom. Because of the war, the club is now excluded from all international competitions until further notice. The German international, who is still injured, announced on Tuesday that he no longer wanted to play for the Russian club. “The terrible war against Ukraine makes me stunned and very sad,” said Ovtcharov: “It’s actually not the sport’s fault, but I can’t just keep playing table tennis there!” Ovtcharov was born in Kyiv in 1988. His grandmother lived in the Ukrainian capital until just a few weeks ago.