THE countdown to the 2026 Southern Africa Regional Table Tennis Championships has reached its final, anxious days, but inside the Zimbabwe Table Tennis Union (ZTTU), the mood has shifted from worry to relief.
Every piece of tournament gear from uniforms, medals and official match balls has landed safely in the country, and none of it came from the government coffers or corporate sponsorship. It was paid for, designed and personally shepherded through Chinese factories by two men, Zhao Xiaoyang and ZTTU men's head coach Wang Liping.
The championships, set for Harare, will gather paddlers from across the region to compete on Zimbabwean soil for the first time in years.
For Wang, who has coached the national men's team and trained young Zimbabwean players through punishing daily sessions running from 4pm to 10pm, hosting the regional showpiece at home had long been a personal goal.
"When Harare was confirmed as host city, organisers quickly ran into a familiar problem, money.
“ZTTU did not have the budget to produce professional playing kit, world-standard medals or internationally certified balls in time for the tournament.
“That is where Zhao stepped in," Wang told The Standardsport.
The two reached an agreement to cover production and shipping costs themselves, out of personal savings, rather than delay or scale down the tournament.
What followed was weeks of legwork across China, with Zhao travelling between garment factories, metal workshops and sports equipment manufacturers to check quality, adjust designs and keep production on schedule.
The medals tell the most striking part of the story. Regional-standard table tennis medals are typically six centimetres wide and 1.5 millimetres thick, enough to meet competition requirements, nothing more. Zhao and Wang chose to go bigger, settling on a 7.5-centimetre medal with double the standard thickness, giving engravers room to work in Zimbabwean imagery that is the Great Zimbabwe Monument, Victoria Falls and local totem patterns.
The upgrade pushed up both manufacturing costs and shipping weight, expenses the pair absorbed without seeking reimbursement from any institution.
The playing kit followed a similar path. Team uniforms were produced in Zimbabwe's national colours of red, green and gold, with several rounds of fabric and design changes before the pair signed off.
For equipment, organisers settled on ITTF-certified DHS three-star balls, the standard used at top international competitions, inspected batch by batch before shipping. Wang has lived in Zimbabwe for several years, building the men's programme from the ground up far from his home country.
Zhao, based in China, has continued to support the federation's efforts from a distance. Between them, the gesture reflects a broader pattern of sports and cultural exchange between China and Zimbabwe that has grown steadily over the past decade.
"Sports transcends borders and language. In the land of Zimbabwe together with Wang we have woven a warm story of cross-border friendship with hard work and sincerity," Zhao said.
"We are servants of both sport and the country and we want the world to witness the simple kindness of Chinese people overseas and also lay a more solid foundation for the continuous development of China-Zimbabwe sports exchanges and friendly bilateral relations."
With the gear now in the country, attention turns to the competition itself, when Zimbabwe's players will test themselves against the region's best on home tables, wearing kit, and competing for medals, that two men outside the official sporting structures chose to fund themselves.