Games-Olympic dreams flicker as teqball awards first Asian Games medals

NAGOYA, Japan, Sept 20 : With Spanish soccer great Carles Puyol on board and a growing fan base in Asia, teqball's ambitious global federation is confident that the sport's quirky hybrid of soccer and table tennis will one day muscle its way on to the Olympic programme.

Teqball took a small but firm step toward legitimacy on Sunday when it awarded its first Asian Games medals on its debut at the multi-sport event in Nagoya, with Thai athletes claiming three of the five titles.

With capacity for only a few hundred fans, the Higashi Sports Centre was hardly Wembley Stadium but the crowd were impressed by the athletes' skill as they hoofed the ball back and forth across the sport's signature curved table.

"It's an amazing milestone on our journey because the teq world community globally is dreaming of becoming an Olympic sport one day," International Teqball Federation (ITF) general secretary Laszlo Vajda told Reuters at the venue.

"I'm very confident actually that our debut as a medal sport at the Asian Games will be such an event that the IOC (International Olympic Committee) will recognise that yes, the sport, the venue, the engagement, the reach, the relevance to young people, the attraction and all that is in place."

HUNGARIAN ROOTS 

Teqball has roots in a training exercise during the golden era of Hungarian soccer in the mid-20th century when players practised "foot-tennis" across a net with a leather ball.

The modern game has come a long way in a short time.

It was conceived a little over a decade ago by two Hungarian friends, a former professional soccer player and a computer scientist, who played around with a soccer ball on a ping pong table.

After refining the table's curve, the duo teamed up with a Hungarian