{"id":942730,"date":"2026-05-07T01:09:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T01:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/942730\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T01:09:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T01:09:19","slug":"duke-of-edinburgh-visits-london-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/942730\/","title":{"rendered":"Duke of Edinburgh visits London 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMay 6, 2026 | Paul Stimpson<\/p>\n

The landmark centenary ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships welcomed HRH The Duke of Edinburgh to OVO Arena Wembley today.<\/p>\n

His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh met athletes, officials and volunteers behind the scenes, had lunch with representatives from the Home Nations, met Table Tennis England and International Table Tennis Federation executives and took in some of the action from the Round of 16.<\/p>\n

His Royal Highness was met on arrival by Richard Scruton, Chairman of the TTIE Board, and was introduced to ITTF President Petra S\u00f6rling, Table Tennis England President Jill Parker MBE, TTIE director Sandra Deaton, Table Tennis England Chair Clare Briegal MBE and Table Tennis England CEO Sally Lockyer.<\/p>\n

The Duke then visited the practice area, where he met Event Director John Timms and some of the event delivery team \u2013 Philippa Gregory, Yue Man, Mike Harding and Norin Khanna \u2013 while players from several nations practised just a few metres away. They chatted about the important contribution made behind the scenes by volunteers and workforce in making the Championships a success.<\/p>\n

Referee Werner Thury and umpire Ingrid Bogren from Sweden also spent time discussing their roles with His Royal Highness, who then moved on to meet Table Tennis England Director of Performance Development Gavin Evans and England athletes Tin-Tin Ho, Jasmin Wong and Paul Drinkhall.<\/p>\n

\"\"His Royal Highness meets members of the England squad<\/p>\n

The Duke spent some time talking about England\u2019s results at the event, the format of the competition and some of the other competitions they have played in.<\/p>\n

His Royal Highness also spoke to Karen Tonge OBE, Dan Bullen, Margaret Welch and Paula Soldini at the umpires\u2019 control desk and with some of the youngsters who are members of the ball crew on the four courts on the field of play.<\/p>\n

\"\"His Royal Highness with members of the ball crew<\/p>\n

The Duke then had lunch with representatives of the Home Nations governing bodies of table tennis, meeting Owen Rodgers (Wales), Richard Yule (Scotland), Terry McLernon MBE (Scotland), Arnold Morgan (Northern Ireland) and Adele Stach-Kevitz (British Para Table Tennis), as well as Richard Scruton, Sally Locker, Clare Briegal and Jill Parker.<\/p>\n

His Royal Highness had a chance to look at the Swaythling Cup and Corbillon Cup, the two trophies the teams are contesting at these Championships, before going on to meet ITTF Executive Board members Paul Calle, Virginia Sung, Wahid Oshodi, Stefan Burgh, Beatrice Romanescu and Anthony Moore.<\/p>\n

The Duke then joined Richard Scruton, Petra S\u00f6rling and Clare Briegal in courtside seats to catch some of the action between China and Sweden in the Women\u2019s Team event.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Duke receives a gift from ITTF President Petra S\u00f6rling<\/p>\n

At the end of the visit, His Royal Highness was presented with a commemorative Art of Ping Pong bat and an event coin.<\/p>\n

Table Tennis England Chief Executive Sally Lockyer said: \u201cWe were honoured and delighted alongside the ITTF to welcome His Royal Highness to these landmark centenary World Championships.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was very interested to hear about the history of the Worlds, including the fact that Wembley has previously hosted the event five times, as well as the history behind the two trophies.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about how we are creating a legacy from these Championships, both in terms of sustainability and social impact, though projects such as Ping Hubs and the Centenary Tables initiative.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were particularly pleased to be able to offer The Duke the chance to meet representatives from the many different groups which are working together to deliver these championships.\u201d<\/p>\n

ITTF President Petra S\u00f6rling said: \u201cTo welcome His Royal Highness to OVO Arena Wembley, in the city which was the birthplace of our sport and where these Championships began 100 years ago, was a truly special moment for our federation and for table tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"His Royal Highness meets members of the ITTF Executive Board<\/p>\n

\"\"The Duke watches the action alongside Petra S\u00f6rling and Richard Scruton (photo by Sam Mellish)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"May 6, 2026 | Paul Stimpson The landmark centenary ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships welcomed HRH The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":942731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-942730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116530627988532635","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/942731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}