Alice primed for NY greatness

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Sarawakian prodigy reports to Bukit Jalil Sports School before China stint for debut in Worlds

Alice displays the medals and trophy that she won in recent competitions alongside (from left) coach Chua Chiaw Lian, KDTTA chairman Christina Helena Wee and her father Clement Chang.

Alice displays the medals and trophy that she won in recent competitions alongside (from left) coach Chua Chiaw Lian, KDTTA chairman Christina Helena Wee and her father Clement Chang.

KUCHING: After becoming the first Sarawak paddler to win the national women’s singles title recently, young table tennis sensation Alice Chang Li Sian literally has the world at her feet for instant stardom in the New Year.

The 15-year-old player from Kuching Division Table Tennis Association has accepted an offer by the Table Tennis Association of Malaysia and National Sports Council to further her studies at Bukit Jalil Sports School in Kuala Lumpur.

Alice, who is 175cm tall and weighs 70kg, will report to the school on Jan 2, 2016 as a fourth-former where she will commence training with the national squad.

This is in preparation for her debut appearance in the World Team Table Tennis Championships that will be held at Melawati Stadium in Shah Alam, Selangor, from Feb 28 to March 6.

For her exemplary feat at the recent National Table Tennis Championships where she won the women’s singles gold, women’s doubles silver with Karen Lyne Dick from Sibu and the women’s team bronze, Alice secured an automatic berth in the women’s squad of five players.

Before getting the automatic berth, Alice was among the six players who were supposed to undergo a selection to earn two remaining tickets to the World Team Table Tennis Championships.

“This is a big honour for me and I feel very happy to be able to play for my country and also get the opportunity to earn glory for Sarawak and Malaysia,” she told The Borneo Post yesterday.

Alice is also one of the players in the national squad who will undergo a training stint in Zen Ting, Hebei, China, from Jan 11-26 in preparation for the world team meet.

“I wish to express my thanks to coach Chua Chiaw Lian for guiding me over the years and the support that KDTTA, fellow players and all those who gave me strong morale support,” she added.

Alice expressed her gratitude to her parents, especially her father Clement Chang Soon Seng who has been a pillar of support and full of encouragement for her budding playing career.

Her father always encouraged her to preservere in her game and advised her never to give up easily.

“My ambition is to be able to play at the SEA Games one day,” she said.

Chua hoped that his protégé will make the best out of the golden chance to be in the national squad and train well and hard to earn glory for the nation.

“She must be very serious and display a good attitude during the national training and at the same time I hope she will pay attention to her studies,” he said.

Chua had coached Alice since she was eight years old and at the time, she was an “offensive” player.

It was only in 2007 aboard a plane during a flight home from the national age group championship that a thought crossed his mind that he should start to train “chopper” players.

“I noticed that chopper players were very rare in Malaysia and there was none in Sarawak so I started to train four chopper players Alice Chang, Jason Siaw, Chai Kiang Ann and Gabriel Ling,” he recalled.

All four have done well in national age group championships by either winning gold or silver medals while Kiang Ann was a silver medallist in Sukma 2013.

According to him, Alice was the best candidate for a chopper player as she was quite tall for a girl of her age (8 years old) and it was very tough to train choppers.

“A chopper must put in extra more efforts than normal paddlers and possess vital characteristics such as strong will, determination, fighting spirit, fitness, good endurance and good footwork,” he said.

He added that there is still much room for improvement for Alice and how far she can go in the future depends very much on the national training programme.