By Sahar Foladi
Connie Psihogios is aiming become the youngest Australian competitor in the Olympics at upcoming Australian qualifying team trials.
The 14-year-old has been selected to trial for the Olympics qualifiers in 2 to 10 September, with the four best individuals to represent the country.
“I’m nervous – I can feel it in my stomach but I’m really excited as well.
“I’ve been working towards this since the age of 10,” she said.
The upcoming trial will see Connie compete against Oceania teams while eyeing her Olympics dream.
This is not the first time she has made headlines as she previously tried her luck in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics at the age of 11.
On that occasion, she passed the first stage of trials but fell short in stage two.
Head coach of the Greater Dandenong Table Tennis Association (GDTTA) Michael Mastromonaco said Connie has a higher chance to make the team this time as the 2020 trial was just to test the waters.
“There’s a huge difference since then.
“Now she is taller, which means she has more reach around the court. She’s more mature and she has competed in top women’s level so she has a very good chance.”
To the great astonishment of everyone, she defeated six-time Olympian Jian Fang Lay in the Women’s Single’s Semi-Final 2023 Croydon Masters Open Veterans in March.
“It was a really good experience since I play the juniors and it’s really hard to get into the women’s team.
“Usually no juniors get into the women’s team,” Connie said.
She has competed in the ITTF Oceania championships 2022 and claimed gold in Under 21 women’s single, Under 19 and Under 15 girls single’s only at the age of 13.
“Oceania was really tough because we played against many others from New Zealand, Fiji, Conga and Australia to qualify for world championships,” Connie said.
She has felt the fire in her belly ever since she took up the sport as a hobby at the age of seven after watching her father compete at the GDTTA club.
“It was very fun at the start but eventually the games turned into serious competitions which I enjoyed and it became something I wanted to pursue.”
Despite the club’s hard work to produce local talents including 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist Qian Yang, the future of the club is unknown as a result of council’s shelving a proposed $9.1-million regional facility at Springers Leisure Centre in Keysborough.
The current GDTTA location will meanwhile make way for council’s $98 million replacement of Dandenong Oasis aquatic and wellbeing centre.
Mr Mastromonaco said the Springers facility could’ve worked better for GDTTA.
“The Springers are a large community of sports under one centre whereas here we are a little separate.”
The new Oasis development will be named “Dandenong Wellbeing Centre” and is expected to open in 2026 with construction to start in 2024.
