It was an iconic image – Romania’s women’s team jumping on top of the table after clinching a semi-final place and their first World Championships medal for 24 years.
Led by Bernadette Szocs, who won the key match on Table 1 to seal a 3-1 victory over France, the players clambered atop the table in a joyous team huddle (pictured above).
Photos by Michael Loveder
But the moment of elation was anything but for Competition Manager Chris Newton, who had a race against time to re-adjust the table in time for the next match – a task he describes as “competition critical”.
“All five of them jumped on to the table, which weighs 250kg. But five people on it made the table flex,” said Chris.
“What that meant for the competition was it actually made the table become, from absolutely level, to one side dropping by half a centimetre.
“So, 15 minutes after this incident happened, we had another round of matches coming on to the table. So very quickly we had to recalibrate the table, which is a long piece of work. There are four screws, it involves four lots of feet involved, lots of measurements, spirit levels, you name it, involved to get that table ready for the next game.
“It was competition critical. Frankly, we were planning to bring a spare table in, which would have delayed the next round by potentially two hours. Under this table, there are about 14 different wires with microphones and camera connections and so on.”
The re-calibration was successful and the men’s quarter-final between France and Brazil was not delayed – but that was not the end of the matter for Chris.
“For me, what was really interesting is post-event,” he said. “When we were debriefing, the social media channels were blowing up around the world. I heard on Weibo we had 35 million hits and growing of pictures of me laying on the floor with colleagues trying to fix this table.
“I mean, great emotions for the teams jumping on the table. But, you know, it causes a problem.
“Interestingly, what it raised for us in England is we were thinking how we train to organisers going forward. How many tournaments do we run week and week out that I actually don’t have a spare table?
“So, we put that message out through our technical officials pages, to think about having a spare table for your local 1 and 2* or 4* because incidents like this may happen.”