Kristina Tot is a Hungarian table tennis player. She has won many prestigious awards and participated in the Olympic Games 4 times.
Childhood, youth
Kristina Tot was born on May 29, 1974 in the city of Miskolc, located in Hungary. She grew up in a simple family and was an ordinary girl, but from childhood she was fond of table tennis. Uncle Christina was a famous athlete. He played table tennis professionally and became the first coach for his niece.
Kristina studied well at school, but relations with classmates did not work out very well. Due to constant training, she had to skip classes. From a young age, she dreamed of a career as an athlete and pushed her studies to the background. At the beginning of her sports career, Christina showed very good results. She twice became the champion of Europe among juniors, and was also twice awarded a silver medal.
Tennis career
In 1993, Christina Toth debuted at the World Championships in the adult category. In singles, she failed. She retired after the first tournament. And paired with Vivien Ello, she was able to reach the quarter finals. Kristina was not happy with this result, but the coach did not worry, since in her life and sports career these were the first serious competitions.
In 1994, Christina Thoth became the European champion. This happened at the championship in Birmingham in doubles. Subsequently, for 9 years, she took part in the European Championships and always showed consistently high results. On account of the tennis player 7 gold, 8 silver and 4 bronze medals in various competitions.
In 1995, Christina took part in the World Cup. But she was able to win only a bronze medal.
The most memorable and significant singles awards for Christina were:
- silver medals of the European Championship (1996 and 2002);
- European Championship bronze medals;
- victory in 2 ITTF Pro Tour Tournaments.
In doubles, she also won a number of victories:
- World Championship bronze medal (1995);
- Gold medals of the European Championship (1994, 2000, 2008);
- Bronze medals of the European Championship (2010, 2011).
Kristina Tot participated 4 times in the Summer Olympics. In 1996, her debut took place in Atlanta. Then she took third place in singles, but could not reach the next stage. In the doubles, she, too, was expecting failure, despite a good start. In 2000, at the Olympic Games, he was able to reach the semifinals in doubles, but in singles competitions she was able to reach only the 1/8 finals.
In 2004, Christina Toth in the single and double stages was able to pass only the first round. In 2008, in Beijing, the athlete participated only in single events, passed 3 rounds, but in the end lost to American Chen Wang. Failures at the Olympics did not break Christina. She believes that participation in games of this level is already a great success. Playing with the best athletes in the world is a great honor.
Despite the tight training schedule and success in table tennis, Christina does not forget about improving her intellectual level. She reads a lot, loves to learn something new, travel in her spare time from training. The athlete is fluent in not only Hungarian, but also English and German. She cooks great, loves cycling. Kristina is a confident Internet user and spends a lot of time at the computer.
Love for children and sports are the main reasons that made Kristina Thoth actively develop table tennis in Hungary. The athlete participated in the opening of several table tennis schools across the country. She set up the Eurokids Premium training camp, which is located in Hungary. Christina often enough independently conducts training. She has developed a unique training program for girls to exercise. Classes are held in a playful way. First, young athletes warm up. The warm-up includes elements of football and handball. Next is the training itself. Girls play at the tennis table. Particular attention is paid to leg development. Athletes train both independently and in pairs.
Kristina Tot admits that in the future she would like to do only coaching and work with adolescents. She considers it important to instill team spirit in young athletes, despite the fact that table tennis involves a single game or a pair game.
Pupils of the school, where Christina teaches, have a unique opportunity to periodically communicate with famous athletes, to learn from them. The famous tennis player emphasizes that during her youth there were no such opportunities and she was very sorry about that.
