Paralympic table tennis great Abdullah Öztürk is pushing through one of the most intense training blocks of his career as he prepares for the upcoming European Para Table Tennis Championships, aiming for medals in all three events he will contest in Helsingborg, Sweden.
Fresh off a demanding run of tournaments, including a high-level competition in France two weeks ago, the two-time Paralympic champion says every session now is geared toward transforming a season’s worth of work into podium success.
Öztürk, who struck gold at both Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020, said the team’s preparations carry a sense of urgency and purpose. The national squad has settled into a 10-day final camp, where double training sessions form the backbone of a program designed to sharpen technique, strengthen endurance and cultivate the sharpness required for championship play. He will compete in singles, doubles and mixed doubles – three categories, three medal ambitions, and one unchanging personal standard.
“My entire career has been built around fighting for gold, and this championship is no different,” he said. “The camp is exhausting, the pace is relentless, but the reward has to come in Sweden. I want medals in all three categories. Hopefully all of them will be gold.”
With the European Championships serving as his immediate goal, Öztürk’s broader career map stretches further. He is already eyeing the 2028 Los Angeles Paralympic Games, which would mark his fifth appearance on one of sport’s biggest stages. Competing at that level again remains an emotional and personal target for the 34-year-old, who continues to balance ambition with realism.
“If my health stays strong, my goal is to reach Los Angeles and compete in my fifth Paralympic Games,” he said. “After I retire, I may move into administration or coaching to pass on my experience, but I won’t rush that decision. As long as I feel capable of fighting for medals, I will keep competing. The day I feel that possibility fade, that will be my last match.”
Öztürk, one of the most experienced athletes on the national team, also carries the role of mentor – an “older brother,” as his teammates call him.
Years of shared training camps, boarding-school memories and collective struggle have turned the squad into a tight-knit family.
Many of the current national team athletes grew up together in the same residential sports schools, a bond that has created a culture of trust, discipline and support that Öztürk believes is the foundation of their consistent international success.
“We’ve built a family over the years,” he said. “When we train, we look out for each other, correct each other and lift each other up. Almost everyone in this group has European, world or Paralympic medals. A culture like this doesn’t happen without a strong family spirit, and that spirit is what shows on the table.”
Reflecting on the road that brought him here, Öztürk recalls both the humorous and the unforgettable.
One early-career match saw him fall from his chair mid-rally after pushing himself too hard during a frantic forehand-backhand exchange, leaving his Chinese opponent confused and searching for him across the court.
But it was the Tokyo 2020 final – a gold medal match on Aug. 30, Türkiye’s Victory Day – that carries the deepest emotional weight. He woke that morning to hundreds of messages urging him to win for the flag, the anthem and the moment, and he delivered, giving the nation a Paralympic triumph forever stamped with national pride.
As he enters the final stretch toward Helsingborg, Öztürk sends a message to supporters at home: keep following, keep believing and keep pushing Türkiye’s Paralympic athletes forward.
“We’re going to the European Championships as the Paralympic Table Tennis National Team,” he said. “We work as hard as we can, and we need our people with us. Paralympic athletes broke records in Paris 2024 with 28 medals. With your support, we want to break that record again in Los Angeles 2028. All we ask for is your support and your prayers.”
