Matthew Syed

Matthew Syed ( born November 2, 1970 in Reading ( Berkshire ) ) is a former English tennis players. He took 1992 and 2000 at the Olympic Games in part. Today he is a journalist and broadcaster.

Career

Syeds father has Pakistani roots, his mother was from Wales. He attended the Maiden Erlegh School in Earley near Reading, after which he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford.

In table tennis the right-handed won numerous titles and qualified for the Olympic Games in 1992 and 2000.

Syed worked as a commentator for the BBC and Euro sport, and since 1999 as a journalist for The Times. He is a regular commentator on radio and television in the fields of sport, culture and politics. For the BBC, he made ​​the film China and Table Tennis. This film was awarded in Lausanne in 2008 with a bronze medal at the Olympic Golden Rings Award of the International Olympic Committee IOC.

The Association of British sports journalists awarded him the 2008 title Sports Feature Writer of the Year, 2009, he was a sports journalist of the year. 2010 his first book was Bounce: Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham, and the Science of Success from the publisher Harper Collins published (ISBN 978-0061723759 ). He won the 2011 title Best New Writer in category " British Sports Books ". In contrast, the satirical magazine Private Eye mocked the style of the book.

Syed is CEO of a sports marketing company. Since 1999 he runs marketing for the English Table Tennis Association.

Policy

Syed was a candidate of the Labour Party in Wokingham at the British general election, 2001. 2010 he won a place at the British general election, however, Tom Blenkinsop was preferred.

Table tennis

Achievements

First international successes achieved Matthew Syed at European Youth Championships, where he reached the final in 1985 in single and lost to Dmitri Masunow. In 1986, he was in double with Michael O'Driscoll second and the first English team. From 1987 to 2000 he took part in six World Cups, but never came here in the near medal ranks. In the Commonwealth championships he won in 1994, 1997 and 2000 with the English team as well as 1997, 2000 and 2001 in singles. In 1992 he won silver at the European Championships in the team competition.

In 1992 he qualified for participation in the individual competition of the Olympic Games. Here he failed after beating Nicolas Chatelain (France) and Ashraf Helmy (Egypt) and a defeat against Jörgen Persson (Sweden) in the preliminary round.

In 2000 he started again in the individual competition of the Olympic Games. Again, he did not survive the first round he defeated Patrick Sahajasein (Mauritius ), but was defeated Peter Franz ( Germany ).

Four times ( 1997,1998,2000,2001 ), he was English champion.

Results from the ITTF database

Private

Matthew Syed has a brother named Andrew, who also attended a youth Europameisterschften.