IOC Official Petra Sörling Wins Tight Table Tennis Election

IOC member Petra Sörling of Sweden retained the presidency of the International Table Tennis Federation on Tuesday in a 104-102 win over Khalil al-Mohannadi of Qatar, the ITTF’s senior executive vice president.

Supporters of al-Mohannadi then called into question the integrity of the vote held after Qatar hosted the world championships. Delegates in an increasingly chaotic election hall in Doha were told the ITTF executive board was going into an emergency session to decide on the next steps.

As a result of this suspension, the meeting will need to be reconvened to conduct the election of the vice presidents. Sörling will announce the new date in due course, which must take place no later than November 2025.

Sörling, re-elected for a second four-year mandate, is one of three female presidents of a governing body of more than 30 Olympics sports on the Summer Games program. She was elected in 2023 as an International Olympics Committee member.

Al-Mohannadi has been a member of the ITTF board for most of the past three decades. He left the board for three years from 2006 after an election for deputy president was annulled. That election dispute went to an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport , where the judge found “convincing evidence that bribery did take place” including offers to reimburse travel expenses.

The ITTF also announced three future hosts of World Championships, with a bid from San Jose, California, for the 2027 event losing to Astana, Kazakhstan. Fukuoka, Japan will host the 2028 finals and Rio will host in 2029. London was already announced as host for the 2026 world championships.

Astana won the 2027 world championship host race against France and the United States, which had presentations from USA Table Tennis Chief Executive Officer Virginia Sung and John Poch, executive director of the San Jose Sports Authority. Fukoka won the 2028 race after Italy withdrew; Rio won for 2029 against bids from the U.S., Germany and China.