Paris Olympians Liam Pitchford and Anna Hursey recently spent a fortnight at the Archway Peterborough club training with its Academy players, under the coaching of Jiayi Liu, former England National coach.

The Archway squad (pictured above with Liam and Anna) includes a number of current and former internationals, including current England No 4 Sam Walker and Wu Zhang, a former double gold medallist at the Chinese National Junior Championships, as well as England junior Jakub and Kacper Piwowar.

A club spokesman said: “It’s been a pleasure to host both Liam and Anna recently so soon after them competing in the Olympics, and real added value for the club’s players to train and spar with such calibre.”

Liam was delighted to catch up with Jiayi, who was a major influence on his career during his cadet and junior days.

Liam said: “(It was) great to catch up with this legend . . . taught me so much about table tennis over the years and still going strong.”

Meanwhile, nine members of the club’s Hope Squad, aged 10-13, spent part of their summer holidays on a month of extensive training in China.

The trip began with the players visiting the WeiHai National sports champion Table Tennis Club, with the head coach Wang Nan, who was Woman’s Olympic gold medallist at the Sydney 2000 Games.

The players also had four nights in Beijing, where they competed against players from three clubs and engaged in cultural activities, including a visit to the Great Wall.

Squad coach Hong Hong Peebles said: “This was a great opportunity for our team, high quality accommodation and food, high quality training conditions and high level experience in physical training for all the players.”