Scotland's number one table tennis player feels "shut out" of team GB
The Perthshire pro has been the UK's number four player for four years
Last updated 22nd Oct 2021
Gavin Rumgay, Perth's very own table tennis phenom has had a long and decorated career. So far he has won 14 Scottish national championships, four appearances at the Commonwealth Games and became British champion in 2015 to name a few.
One thing he hasn't been able to add to his stellar resume is an appearance at the Olympic games and Rumgay say's this is through no fault of his own. Alongside being Scottish number one, the Perthshire man has consistently been the UK's number four player every week for the past four years.
With four places up for grabs in the team GB Olympic squad, Rumgay is frustrated that he wasn't one of them. He said: "I was disappointed in the process over the last few months trying to get into the olympics.
"I was sort of shut out a little bit politically from the English side. I was the number four in the UK. I've been consistently the number four in the UK every week for the past four years and yet they chose four English player's to go to the Olympics.
"That doesn't sit well with me but its been like that for many, many years. There's no player in the men's game that has played at an Olympics outside of the English players. There was fantastic Welsh players, Adam Robertson and Ryan Jenkins who were very similar to me, number three or four in Brittan and never got a sniff of playing in the Olympics."
Rumgay puts this down to the extra voting power that the English authorities have, saying: "England basically control the voting system and always have done. When it gets to it, Scotland vote for you, Northern Ireland vote for you, Wales vote for you but then England get three votes.
"So that means a lot of the times in these big decisions it's three all and England always get the casting vote, the England chairman. It basically means that players outside of England have no chance. These thing's I'll have to try and push over the next few years in hope that I can change that for possibly the next five or six Scottish players that try and come up."
Rumgay explained the selection process, saying: "You have to be the top one or two in the UK to then go to the qualification tournaments and I'm not good enough (to make the top two spots) The English number one and two are really, really world class players and they deserved their place in the team.
"After that it's difficult to get in. You have to get in through the team route. Which I think I'm a good team player and I'd be a great number four for the team GB and enhance the team. I've got a lot of attributes that some of the other players don't have."
He added: "You need lot's of players with lot's of different styles and on the World Tour I've got a brilliant record against left handed players because I serve very well. I think having me on the bench would be great if you suddenly come up against a team with three or four left handed players in it."
The table tennis star says the continual snubs have caused him not to participate in the World Tour. He said: "I'm not gonna be playing on the World Tour because I just think longer term I've had three disappointments in a row where I've been UK number four going into an Olympics and not been picked.
"So, I don't think I want to use my time and money to go through another cycle of that. I don't think I need that anymore."
Despite his disappointment in the Olympic selection process, the table tennis ace is having a home coming this weekend to play in the table tennis senior national championships at the Bell's Sports Centre in Perth. Rumgay is out to add to his record haul of championship wins