As part of our commitment to achieving gender parity in table tennis, we celebrated International Women’s Day on Friday March 8 by hosting a women and girls’ event in Manchester.

The morning saw 17 women attend an activation session at the Ping Hub in the Great Northern Warehouse, which involved free play and coaching tips and games led by Olympian Andrea Holt.

In the afternoon, a group of 19 women moved over to the Manchester Art Gallery for an insight and learning session.

During the session, a team of three Table Tennis England staff, Jade Griffiths, Jenny Leach and Lauren Evans, explored attendees’ thoughts and perceptions on the landscape for Women and Girls in table tennis, what may prevent women and girls from taking part, and how those barriers could be overcome.

The insight and understanding collected will continue to be built upon over the coming months, including during our online insight and learning session which you can learn more about here.

The key themes identified from Manchester will help to guide and inform our future work towards gender parity to be able to better engage and support women and girls in the sport.