2003 U.S. Paralympics Table Tennis Championships presented by the Hartford

Second U.S. Open Features Best in World

Colorado Springs, CO · Sept. 12-14, 2003

By Tom Wintrich

Germany's Rainer Schmidt. File photo care of International Paralympic Table Tennis ©2003.

The U.S. Paralympics Table Tennis Championships presented by the Hartford was the second U.S. Open of the season, and whereas the U.S. Open contested in July in Fort Lauderdale suffered a dearth of world-ranked players, the Colorado Springs U.S. Open boasted a plethora of international stars. No fewer than 56 of the world’s top-20 disabled athletes from 18 countries competed, including two of the most remarkable table tennis athletes anywhere, disabled or not. That would be Germany’s Daniel Arnold and Rainer Schmidt, world #1 and #9 respectively in Standing Male, Class 6. Daniel Arnold plays at the 2100-plus level despite having no forearms and Rainer Schmidt is close to that despite having no arms and one leg. Yes, I know it is difficult to imagine an armless table tennis player looping and moving efficiently on one leg but trust me and everyone else who has seen this man play, he’s for real, and he makes Jan-Ove Waldner look – unremarkable. His secret is a long-handled racket attached to a plastic ring that encircles the stub that is his left arm. While that arrangement basically (very basically) overcomes his physical limitations, it doesn’t account for his technical skills, which by default have to exceed disabled and abled-body players alike. He loops smoothly forehand and backhand, he blocks, he can chop and he has the most legal serve of all. He presents the ball on a perfectly flat paddle and tosses it high into the air before executing a pendulum serve. Given a weak return, he loops the third ball for a winner. Still, countryman Daniel Arnold usually takes him down except at the recent 2003 European Championships when Schmidt prevailed. At the U.S. Open in Colorado Springs, Arnold regained his supremacy by winning Male Singles, Class 6, over Schmidt. (Go to www.ipttc.org for player profiles, photos and complete results.)

Men's Class 8 Silver Medalist Wayne Lo and  Men's Class 9 Gold Medalist Tahl Leibovitz Photo by Sean O'Neill ©2003.	Women's Class 5 Team Silver Medalists  Noga Nir-Kistler and Jennifer Johnson.  Photo by Sean O'Neill ©2003.	Women's Class 5 Team Bronze Medalists  Terry Tierney and Carolynne Bethka Photo by Sean O'Neill ©2003.

Men's Class 8 Team Bronze Medalists Bryce Luu and Bob Bowlander. Photo by Sean O'Neill ©2003.

If you were an astute reader you would have wondered how there could be 56 top-20 players. Classification is the answer. In Paralympic competition, there are ten divisions of play, five for wheelchair and five for standing. The classification system starts with number one and ends at 10 with 1-5 denoting wheelchair athletes and 6-10 denoting standing athletes. The higher the number, the less disabled the athlete. Consequently, a Class-5 player is less disabled than a Class-3 player but that does not mean the Class 5 player will necessarily win. For example, in the Open Wheelchair event, Kyoung Sik Choi of Korea won over his countryman Byoung-Young Kim even though Choi is a Class 4 and Kim is a Class 5. In the Class 4 event itself, Choi finished third despite being the number one seed. Progressing through the standing athletes from Class 6 on, you end with Class 10, which is essentially a person who has something wrong with his non-playing hand or arm, but is otherwise not physically challenged. Such a person is Fredrick Andersson of Sweden who won two gold medals, one for the Open Standing singles and the other for Class 10 Standing singles. For comparison, Andersson’s USATT rating would be around 2500. 

In the past, Paralympic competition was included in the traditional U.S. Open but given the convention-like scope of that competition, the Paralympic athletes were often lost in the shuffle, having to share time, space and umpires with an 800-entry event that had more than enough logistical challenges of its own, especially when run simultaneously with the ITTF Pro Tour. Much better to stage a separate U.S. Open event just for the Paralympic athletes and to that end, credit must be given to the USOC, U.S. Paralympics Manager Laura Ryan and Sean O’Neill. Larry Rose was brought in to direct the event and along with Bob Tretheway, Field of Play Director, assembled the team that would ultimately produce the first U.S. Open Paralympics, which was granted a 30-point event status by the International Paralympic Table Tennis Committee (IPTTC). A 30-point event is roughly equivalent to a 5-star competition and that’s a high enough designation to attract the best players in the world. It also brought in Raul Calin of Spain, the IPTTC’s technical delegate who spent countless hours at the computer generating draws and match cards. It didn’t hurt that the Olympic Training Center could provide on-campus housing and excellent playing facilities with a dining hall just a short stroll or roll away. As to tables, Butterfly came through with its exceptional Center Fold 25 Rollaway, which is wheelchair approved right out of the box. Butterfly also supplied the balls. Another key sponsor was Premiere Conferencing of Colorado Springs. 

They seem to be having a good time! Men's Class 9 Medalists Shigekazu Tomioka (Silver-JPN), Tahl Leibovitz (Gold-USA) and Gerben Last (Bronze-NED). Photo by Sean O'Neill ©2003.

An expert international umpire crew under the leadership of International Referee Aly Salam and Deputy Referee Karol Zduliak kept the matches running continuously. From a player’s point of view, there’s nothing like having an umpire for every match and this hard-working crew had to work non-stop for three days, including two- and three-hour stints umpiring two-man team ties. The athletes appreciated the efforts of Jun Amon, Pat Collins, Grady Gordon, Dave Huggins, Azmy Ibrahim, Olga Kahan, Stan Kahan, Yelena Karshtedt, Larry Kesler, Fred Kistler, Bob Leatherwood, Norm Tang, Roman Tinyzin, Ina Wiekert and Chris Williams.  

Two Dutch coaches show their appreciation for "MVP" volunteer Rosie Kilpatrick. Photo by Sean O'Neill ©2003.

Enough acknowledgements and explanation; once you understand the ground rules of Paralympic competition, you can focus on the competition which you quickly discover is no different than any other sporting event. All athletes try to maximize their own strengths and exploit their opponents’ weaknesses, and Paralympic athletes offer no exceptions. This is especially obvious in wheelchair competition. It is a let if you serve a ball that fails to leave the table or serve an angle beyond the sidelines of the table, but once the ball is in play after serve, anything goes. Drop shots and angled attacks are the norm and the players take obvious satisfaction in hitting un-returnable shots that exceed the reach of their opponents. You will see lobs and the underspin shovel shot every wheelchair player employs at one time or another. Fast and long serves are common in wheelchair play as they are the basis of three-ball and counter-driving attacks but, of course, they can be risky as well. Against Class 6 Daniel Arnold who has such short arms, opponents will lob to him but if you don’t land the ball deep in the court, he’ll hit off the bounce to nullify your opportunistic tactics.  In short, you try to do whatever you can do within the rules to beat your opponent and you play with as much intensity as your personality exudes. 

Hong Kong's Kam Shing Kwong vs. Japan's Toshihiko Oka in the semifinals of Men's Class 5 Singles. Kwong go the bronze, Oka the gold. Photo by Larry Rose ©2003.	USA's Men's Class 4 team, Raul Pernites and Jon Redman vs. Korea's Jun-Young PARK and Il-Sang CHOI. Photo by Larry Rose ©2003.

Team USA, under the capable direction of Coach O’Neill, fielded the largest contingency with 16 players comprised of 12 men and 4 women. Included on the team were veterans Jennifer Johnson, a 1988 and 1996 Paralympic Gold Medalist, and Norman Bass who played both professional football and baseball before establishing himself as #16 in the world in Class 7 singles. Tahl Leibovitz, who had his difficulties in team competition, came through in the end with a five-game win in the gold medal match of Class 9 singles. Wayne Lo, who had O’Neill exclaiming “Wayne’s World, Wayne’s World!” during his brilliant team play, was the silver medalist in Class 8 singles. USA 1, comprised of Jennifer Johnson and Noga Nir-Kistler and USA 2 composed of Terry Tierney and Carolyn Bethka took the Silver and Bronze medal respectively in women’s teams for classes 4-5.  In Class 8 of men’s teams, Bob Bowlander and Bryce Luu won the Bronze medal.

Women’s Open Wheelchair: 1^st Satoko Fujiwara (JPN); 2^nd Yuet Wah Fung (HKG); 3^rd Tomomko Fukuzawa (JPN).

Men’s Open Wheelchair: 1^st Kyoung-Sik Choi (KOR); 2^nd Byoung-Young Kim (KOR); 3^rd Emeric Martin (FRA).

Open Men’s Standing: 1^st Fredrick Andersson (SWE); 2^nd Deszo Bereczki (HUN); 3^rd Shigekazu Tomioka (JPN).

Women’s Teams Class 1-3: 1^st Japan; 2^nd Netherlands; 3^rd Ireland.

Women’s Teams Classes 4-5: 1^st Hong Kong; 2^nd USA 1; 3^rd USA 2.

Men’s Teams Class 2-3: 1^st Great Britain; 2^nd Korea 2; 3^rd France.

Men’s Teams Class 4: 1^st Korea; 2^nd France; 3^rd Great Britain.

Men’s Teams Class 5: 1^st Korea; 2^nd Sweden 1; 3^rd Sweden 2.

Men’s Teams Classes 6-7: 1^st Sweden; 2^nd Germany 2; 3^rd Germany 1.

Mens’ Teams Class 8: 1^st France; 2^nd Croatia; 3^rd USA.

Men’s Teams Classes 9-10: 1^st Netherlands; 2^nd Germany 2; 3^rd Croatia.

Women’s Class 1-3: 1^st Gertrudis Laemers (NED); 2^nd Tomomko Fukuzawa (JPN); 3^rd Satoko Fujiwara (JPN).

Women’s Class 4-5: 1^st Kimie Bessho (JPN); 2^nd Cristina Hoffman (MEX); 3^rd Yuet Wah Fung (HKG).

Men’s Class 2: 1^st Vincent Boury (FRA); 2^nd Stephane Molliens (FRA); 3^rd Chung-Kun Park (KOR).

Men’s Class 3: 1^st Oerjan Kylevik (SWE); 2^nd Young-Ill Jeyoung (KOR); 3^rd Stefan Trofan (GBR).

Men’s Class 4: 1^st Emeric Martin (FRA); 2^nd Jun-Young Park (KOR); 2^nd Kyoung-Sik Choi (KOR).

Men’s Class 5: 1^st Toshihiko Oka (JPN); 2^nd Eun-Chang Jung (KOR); 3^rd Kam Shing Kwong (HKG).

Men’s Class 6: 1^st Daniel Arnold (GER); 2^nd Rainer Schmidt (GER); 3^rd Jean-Yves Abbadie (FRA).

Men’s Class 7: 1^st Linus Loenberg (SWE); 2^nd Dieter Meyer (GER); 3^rd Jochen Wollmert (GER).

Men’s Class 8: 1^st Michel Schaller (FRA); 2^nd Wayne Lo (USA); 3^rd Peter Frommelt (LIE).

Men’s Class 9: 1^st Tahl Leibovitz (USA); 2^nd Shigekazu Tomioka (JPN); 3^rd Gerben Last (NED).

Men’s Class 10: 1^st Fredrik Andersson (SWE); 2^nd Andreas Nau (GER); 3^rd Zsolt Bereczki (HUN).