SF Gate: Bay Area Table Tennis Facility Nets Asian American Olympians

 
Certain gymnasiums, swim clubs and ice rinks are known for producing Olympians.
 
Five time world ice skating champion Michelle Kwan trained at the Ice Castle International Training Center in Lake Arrowhead near Los Angeles.
 
1996 gymnastics Olympic Gold Medal winner Amy Chow did her early work at West Valley Gymnastics in Campbell near San Jose.
 
Three time gold medal Olympic swimmer Nathan Adrian was a member of both the Olympic Aquatic Club and Tacoma Swim Club in Washington.
 
Now there’s a training facility in the San Francisco Bay Area producing its own Olympians, but its not a sport that’s top of mind when you think of the Olympics.
 
A story by Stanford student Saurabh Datar published in SF Gate reports that three of the four U.S. table tennis Olympians at the 2012 London games came from the India Community Center’s Table Tennis facility in Fremont.
 
All three of those Olympians happened to be Asian American-Ariel Hsing, Lily Zhang and Timothy Wang.
 
The facility has four young men and women training there that are considered contenders for the 2016 Summer games in Rio.
 
“We started in 2003 with two to three tables in the lobby of the India Community Center building, with around six kids. Now we have 200 kids who play here,” said Rajul Sheth, the executive director of the center.
 
You can read about what makes the center a magnet for Olympians in SF Gate.