The ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) World Masters Table Tennis Championships took place this year (2024) in July in Rome, Italy. At 6,ooo competitiors competing in five year age groups from over 40’s to to over 90’s, it was the largest table tennis competiton ever held. The range was huge, from current professional players such as Joao Montiero, Portuguese 40+ age group gold medallist and still ranked in the top 100 in the world, through to Betty Bird a British 90+ gold medallist, along with 5,998 others; including my somewhat overambitious self chasing ping pong glory rainbows at the age of 58.
My interest in and joy around table tennis is usually a good conversation stopper amongst my friends, acquaintances and anyone I meet whom I get to mention it to ( I’m trying to learn not to); so I appreciated being able to chat about different bats, rubbers, unorthodox playing styles, famous players etc without appearing geeky, drawing blank looks or having to explain myself. The Veteran (now more often referred to as Masters) table tennis community is small enough that many people know each other (or of each other) and it’s a great social event.
The game is biggest in East Asia, Eastern Europe, Germany and France though there were people from many other countries. Ukraine received perhaps the loudest cheer at the opening ceremony (mostly only women could be there), Russia was missing apart from a few independent representatives and Israel had only a few women, all reflecting wider world issues outside of the ping pong hall. Petra Sorling, head of the ITTF, speaking at the opening was keen to emphasise a similar ethos as the Olympics (excellence, respect and friendship) as a reminder of the role table tennis and sport in general can play in promoting peace. Table tennis has a good track record in world diplomacy, the most famous incident occurring at the 1971 world championships in Japan when American and Chinese players played a key role in the thawing of the then tense US/China relations. Let’s hope for more of that and less culture war and actual war.
As a fairly late starter to the sport (50) I’ve long since understood that Rome wasn’t built in a day as far as building table tennis skills is concerned. With its unique combination of athleticism, speed, variety of spins and styles, 80% of muscles are used and the range of the brain and nervous system involvement is beyond most other sports . As much of this gets a little set earlier in life, it makes makes being a late starter tough and most top Masters players have played since childhood . On the table overall friendliness was temporarily suspended at the table (in the best spirit) and the general standard of play was incredibly high. BUT despite my late starting disadvantage, I felt as though I played pretty well despite not progressing very far.
There was also a large practice hall, so plenty of opportunities to play informally and where I realised that my singles qualifying group had very high standard compared to many people I played in there, so I felt better about my performance and realised I was doing okay.
There are plenty of opportunities to play, but of course I was eventually knocked out of everything. The positive of that was that I could then learn by watching the more or less professional standard table tennis on view in the later rounds and finals of the various age groups and competitions .
Whilst the chances of me ever getting on a podium at an International table tennis tournament maybe slim, I intend to keep going. Playing and watching at an event like this has undoubtably improved my game and I’m now stronger in the relatively small pond of my own amateur league in the UK.
Some of the remarkable players I saw on the the podium ( I loved it that semi finalists shared 3rd place and after having got that far no one has to suffer the ignonimity of 4th and no podium) :
The next World Masters is in South Korea in 2026 and I intend to be there. I’m nothing if not persistent and determined – so lets see!
Viva la Pong .
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