Senior Corner

March/April 2005
By Olga & Stan Kahan,

Co-Chairs, USATT Senior Committee

949-830-6699 (ph) · 949-240-7167 (fax)

So it is already the third month of 2005 and it seems to be just December a few days ago when we finished the year with the U.S. National Championships in Las Vegas. Lo and behold, finalists for the U.S. Championships and top spots for the U.S. Team for the 2005 World Championships in Shanghai were both champions of the Meiklejohn National Seniors. Cheng Yinghua and David Zhuang have five Meiklejohn Championships between them. And now 46-year-old Cheng is once again U.S. National Champion.

Other seniors: Lily Yip, who was elected a vice president of USATT, and David Sakai, a member of the USATT Senior Committee, were inducted into the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame at the Stratosphere Hotel in December. Outside they were shooting a terrorist film. Whenever Tim Boggan began to make a presentation the helicopters circled the Hall of Fame Dinner, firing machine guns in all directions. On the 103rd floor, that can be quite nerve-racking. Fortunately, the only deaths we heard about were the chickens served for the banquet.

Hopefully, someday we will have a permanent Hall of Fame facility to keep our memorabilia. We understand that should a permanent table tennis training center be situated at the Chula Vista, Ca. U.S. Olympic Training site, there would be room to house a permanent U.S. and Canadian TT Hall of Fame.

It was a pleasant surprise to find a full-page article in the Los Angeles Times (Dec. 20, 2004), totally dedicated to the U.S. Nationals with the emphasis on its multigenerational aspect. “I love the democratic aspect of it,” said 58-year-old Fran Guidry from Northern California to Johanna Neuman, a Times staff writer. “It’s a game where 9-year-olds play 70-year-olds. It’s a lot of fun, and you’re dripping sweat in 15 minutes.”

However, it is not always fun but occasionally suffering! One of the stories we observed in Las Vegas was a 70-year-old man from San Francisco playing in his round robin, having beaten an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old in his rating division. In the last match, he faced a 10-year-old who wagged her fingers at him and said, “You’ve beaten all my friends, now I will teach you a lesson and you will suffer.” Whereupon he lost three straight to the young lady. Sound familiar?

In that sense, it is also a relief to have some senior clubs and tournaments where the mature players may enjoy playing against those who have already passed the threshold of half-a-century of their existence. For instance, in the beautiful sunny Bewalmadena Coasta near Malaga, Spain, just walking distance from the warm Mediterranean beach, there is an International Table Tennis Club, run by Barry Meisel, who came there from England.

When Barry was in the U.S. recently, he cordially invited us to visit his Spanish club and spend some time there and play table tennis with other jetsetters who drop in from various countries, including Per Thoresen, a nuclear physicist from Norway, who won gold with our Tom Miller in Random Draw Doubles in the Huntsman World Senior Games. Then there is Naomi Swannell, a retired senior probation officer from England, originally from New Zealand, who met Per in Malaga four years ago during vacations and “fell in love” with the enchanting location and the club. We promised Barry that if we take a trip to Europe in 2005 we will drop in to experience the hospitality of this international senior club. It would be great if we had such clubs in our sunny states, such as Arizona, California, Florida, etc., widely open to all, not just the local senior communities or their club members.

Mimi and Carlos Ortegon from the Reno Sparks club will run the fifth “The Biggest Little Reno Sparks” tournament in 2005. Mimi, the game director, also organizes picnics and Christmas dinners, with a complimentary ethnic potluck for players following their table tennis games. We admire you both, Mimi and Carlos, for your devotion to the sport of table tennis and camaraderie.

The Sun City Roseville California Senior Table Tennis Club is actively looking for other senior TT clubs interested in tournaments and interclub competitions. Please send us a fax or contact us personally at 949-830-6699 if you would like to be in touch with this club’s managers.

The Great News: The Meiklejohn National Seniors is expanding and will be open to all North American countries. This tournament now will be called the Meiklejohn North American Seniors Open, and will be held June 2-5, 2005, in Laguna Woods, CA. Enroll now! (Contact Ray Kunze, tournament director, at 949-583-1695 or Olga Kahan, tournament chair, at 949-830-6699.)

And even more Great News! The University of Pennsylvania will be holding the 2005 Meiklejohn Senior Table Tennis Championship, at the Pottruck Center of their Philadelphia campus, March 5, 2005.  The tournament will be operated by NATT, and offers $3,000 in prize money to senior (over 40 year old) players. U. of Penn. holds the tournament annually in fulfillment of a request made by Bill and Louise Meiklejohn, who have taken an active and ongoing role in promoting the life sport value of table tennis.

As our goal is to also increase senior women’s participation in competitive table tennis, the USATT Senior Committee has sent a recommendation to the USATT board and executive director to introduce a new event at the U.S. Open and Nationals: Over 70 Women.

We wish our U.S. National Team, with its great young and mature athletes, success at the Worlds in Shanghai later this year!