Great Britain Wins Four Medals at ITTF World Para Challenger Lignano

British Para Table Tennis returned from Lignano Sabbiadoro with four singles medals at the ITTF World Para Challenger, held from 18 to 21 March 2026 in Italy: silvers for Fliss Pickard (Women's Class 6), Rob Davies (Men's Class 1) and Joshua Stacey (Men's Class 9), plus a bronze for Aaron McKibbin in Men's Class 8.

Pickard's run was one of the more dramatic in the British camp. She opened her campaign against Maryna Lytovchenko, the 2020 Paralympic champion and reigning world champion from Ukraine, and lost in three very close sets. That defeat made progression from the group far from straightforward, but Pickard steadied herself and, trailing 2-1 against Pang Wing Ka of Hong Kong, a two-time Asian Championships bronze medalist, she fought back to win 3-2 and advance. She ultimately reached the final and claimed silver, though the identity of the player who defeated her there is still to be confirmed.

Davies, representing Wales at the event, was the standout performer in terms of detailed match drama. In the quarter-final he swept past Guillermo Jose Bustamante Sierra of Argentina, a two-time Pan American silver medalist, with a convincing 3-0 win. The semi-final brought a sterner test in Dmitrii Lavrov, competing as an Individual Neutral Athlete. Davies took the opener 11-3, surrendered the second set, then won the third and fourth 11-7 apiece to book a place in the gold-medal match against Kim Hyeon Uk of the Republic of Korea, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic silver medalist and world No. 2.

The final did not go Davies' way. He found himself two sets down before clawing back the third, but Kim took the fourth 11-7 to claim the gold and leave the Welshman with silver.

Stacey's silver in Men's Class 9 and McKibbin's bronze in Men's Class 8 rounded out a productive four-medal haul for the British squad, with the full bracket details for both athletes still to emerge from official ITTF results. The quality of opposition across all four medal runs, from reigning world champions to Olympic medallists, underlines where this British Para Table Tennis cohort now sits on the international circuit.