Athlete Ivan Mai is a master of sport of international class of Ukraine in table tennis, silver medalist of the 2017 World Championship in team category and bronze medalist of the 2018 World Cup in individual category 8, silver medalist of the Ukrainian Championship 2019 among common athletes in individual and team categories. Three times he became European champion in the team category. The athlete won a ticket to the Paralympic Games in Tokyo after winning a qualifying tournament in Slovenia in June this year.
On August 28, Ivan Mai competed with Australian Ma Lin in the semifinals, losing 1:3. There is no bronze final in the table tennis program, so the score was decisive.
“Another sports star – Poltava Polytechnic graduate Ivan Mai has won an important victory and a bronze medal at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo!
I am proud to have seen the beginning of a competitive career for a very capable first-year student at the time. His path started from the first game to regular training. And many times we had a great opportunity to play both in pairs and on different sides of the table. These are pure tour de force and sports professionalism in table tennis.
Titled athlete, he is a very modest person and a hard worker. During his studies at our university he had won many victories at European competitions, not to mention all-Ukrainian ones, and was already a Master of Sport of International Class of Ukraine, a member of the Paralympic team of Ukraine in table tennis and world champion in 2019!
I am extremely glad that students and graduates of Poltava Polytechnic continue to succeed and glorify the Poltava region!” – compliments the head of the separate subdivision of the NGO “Student Sports Union of Ukraine” in Poltava region, the rector of the National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”, Professor Volodymyr Onyshchenko.
Last year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyi awarded graduate tennis player Ivan Mai and student Oleksii Virchenko, a swimming champion, with scholarships for outstanding Paralympic and Deaflympic athletes and their coaches.
Second-year student at the Faculty of Physical Culture and Sports of Poltava Polytechnic Oleksii Virchenko has won a silver medal in men’s 100m butterfly – S13 at the Paralympics in Tokyo.
Media Center of
National University “Yuri Kondratyuk Poltava Polytechnic”
