Pickard takes silver as Great Britain win four medals in Slovenia

Fliss Pickard’s silver in women’s class 6 singles gave Great Britain the clearest signal yet that its para table tennis squad is carrying momentum into the next qualification phase, as the team left the ITTF World Para Elite event in Lasko, Slovenia with four singles medals and several more near-misses.

Pickard went one step further than she had at the previous week’s Challenger event, where she also reached the final, and her run in Lasko showed both resilience and range. She opened by beating Sweden’s Cajsa Stadler, a European bronze medallist, then came from 2-1 down to defeat Poland’s Barbara Jablonka, the European Paralympic Youth Games champion. She completed her group-stage charge by beating Ukraine’s Antonina Khodzynskaya, a former world, Paralympic and European medallist, before losing in the final to Maryna Lytovchenko, the world No. 2 from Ukraine, a two-time world champion and Tokyo 2020 Paralympic champion.

Great Britain’s return from the May 11 to 15 tournament was built on more than one standout result. Rob Davies took bronze in men’s class 1, Aaron McKibbin won bronze in men’s class 8 and Joshua Stacey added bronze in men’s class 9, giving GB four singles medals in total. Eight British players reached the knockout rounds, while three more were edged out in fifth-set deciders, evidence that the squad was competitive across multiple classes rather than reliant on one deep run.

That breadth matters because the Elite level in Lasko was stronger than the Challenger event staged the week before. The results came against deeper opposition, and that makes Pickard’s back-to-back finals appearance and the three bronzes more meaningful than a simple medal count. It also offers a useful read on where the British squad stands as the season moves toward the tournaments that will decide qualification for the World Championships in Thailand in November.

Those championships are scheduled for Pattaya from November 13 to 19, 2026, and will feature 165 men and 165 women for the first time. For GB, the path to that stage now looks encouraging. Pickard has backed up the bronze she won at the 2018 World Championships with another finals appearance, Davies remains a durable class 1 force, McKibbin continues to prove his class 8 pedigree, and Stacey’s bronze added another international result to a career that began with his debut in 2017 and his Wales appearance at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

Lasko has become a productive stop for Britain. In 2025, Will Bayley and McKibbin won gold at the inaugural Elite event there, while Pickard and Stacey took silver. This latest trip did not bring the same number of titles, but it did reinforce the same conclusion: Britain is still producing podium-level results across classes, and Pickard’s silver was the headliner that showed it most clearly.