Name Will Bayley | ||
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Will bayley vs maksym nikolenko final class 7 world para championships 2014
William John Bayley MBE (born 17 January 1988) is a British professional Paralympic table tennis player, ranked world number 1. He is the 2016 Summer Paralympics Games gold medallist and the 2014 World Champion.
Contents
- Will bayley vs maksym nikolenko final class 7 world para championships 2014
- Personal life
- Table Tennis career
- References
Personal life
Bayley was born on 17 January 1988 in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. He was born with arthrogryposis which affects all four of his limbs.
At the age of seven he was diagnosed with cancer. During his recovery he began playing table tennis after his grandmother bought him his first table.
Table Tennis career
At the age of 12 he joined the Byng Hall Table Tennis Club in Tunbridge Wells and went on to represent Kent's able bodied men's team. From the age of 17 he has lived and trained full time at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.
He represented Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, China, where he was knocked out of the table tennis C7 singles in the preliminary round after defeats against Germany's Jochen Wollmert and Ukraine's Mykhaylo Popov and a single victory against Shumel Shur of Israel. He also competed in the C6-8 team event along with Paul Karabardak and David Wetherill; they were eliminated at the quarterfinal stage. In 2009 he won gold medals at the Czech and German opens, in 2010 he took golds in Lignano and Brazil.
Bayley won a gold medal in the singles at the 2011 European Championships in Split, Croatia. He also won a silver medal in the men's Team event class 7, playing alongside Karabardak. At the end of 2011 he was voted the European Players' Player of the Year and in January 2012 he achieved the world number one ranking.
Will Bayley won a silver medal in the London 2012 Summer Paralympics after losing to Germany's Jochen Wollmert in the class 7 final.
At the Rio 2016 Summer Paralympics, Bayley won his first Paralympic gold medal after beating home-favorite Brazilian Israel Pereira Stroh. He received a yellow card for jumping up onto the table in celebration.
Bayley was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to table tennis.