Youth sports event

IT genius for the Spielplan

(Bild: GEPA)

380 international sports talents and an IT genius who even worked on the timetable for the New York subway for a global corporation. These are the main ingredients for a table tennis mega junior event with around 4,000 matches over the Easter weekend in Linz.

His head not only has a little something of Rübezahl about it, but also of a genius . . .

Christoph Theis!

He is the "mastermind" with the wild beard behind the 23rd Raiffeisen Youth Championship, which begins on Maundy Thursday at the Gugl in Linz. A four-day junior table tennis event of superlatives, as these figures prove:

• 16 nations are coming.

• There are 55 tables,

• 80 delegations.

• 140 coaches.

• 380 active players

• and more than 4000 games!

The 61-year-old's highly complex task: Theis has to create match and time schedules in such a way that players from individual nations meet as late as possible, two or more protégés of one coach do not play at the same time, none of the talents have two matches in a row, and, and, and. "There are exceptions to this in the individual age groups, such as the fact that a 13-year-old can already play in an U15 team in the team competition," says the IT specialist, who was born in Hamburg but has lived in Burgenland for a long time.

World Cup and European Championship know-how
He only played ping-pong as a child, but calls table tennis "my hobby", although he has also created computer programs for the World and European Championships. Theis also worked for Siemens for years on the processes of the New York subway. The latter includes ten lines, a 380 km network, 472 stations and almost two billion passengers per year. . .