Kuwait City, Kuwait, June 6, 2022: Rachel Ramos has a wish – that the Olympic Council of Asia will soon include Southeast Asia as a zone in its Development Programme for coaches and referees around the region.
Ramos, an International Table Tennis Federation qualified umpire, is the referees’ instructor for ping pong at the OCA Phase Three Development Programme currently underway at its headquarters in Salmiya.
“I have been left impressed at the facilities and the resources available for a variety of sports, as well as the organisation that has gone into this programme which has been excellent,” extolled Filipino Ramos.
“This is a great initiative, getting a number of NOCs and their individual federations from West Asia to send coaches and referees for a programme like this under one roof. I hope the OCA will look at other zones in Asia too, especially Southeast Asia which needs more help,” she pointed out.
Ramos, who has been an ITTF expert for the past 10 years, was at the SEA Games in Vietnam last month and she observed that while countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand had high standards in its officials in table tennis, others like Laos, Cambodia, Brunei and Myanmar could do with a helping hand.
“We need more qualified umpires in Southeast Asia. And we need them to have more exposure. A programme like this would be ideal and I hope one day the Olympic Council of Asia can do something similar,” Ramos said.
“There are around 25 umpires in this course here, and I’m happy to find that more than half of them are international umpires. We need to raise standards to similar levels in other parts of Asia too,” Ramos added.
The Manila-based Ramos has officiated at the 2012 London Olympics and the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang. A call from the Asian Table Tennis Union saw her catch a flight to Kuwait to share her knowledge in this refresher course.
“I believe this is the first time the OCA is doing something like this, having run two earlier phases for six other sports. It is a first for me too, to be at a course where more than one country has been involved. This is a great idea and I highly recommend that it continues,” she added.