It is with great sadness that the death of Bas DEN BREEJEN is announced. DEN BREEJEN was granted the ITTF Merit Award in 1992.
An honorary member of the NTTB who played a significant role in publicity on and promotion for the Netherlands table tennis. He died at the age of 93.
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As a freelance journalist Bas den Breejen has been very active in Dutch and international table tennis. For 35 years he was editor and from 1975 to 1985 editor-in-chief of the federation’s official magazine. His table tennis commentary and reports in the NCRV Saturday afternoon radio sports show became famous all over the Netherlands.
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For decades he attended major table tennis events such as the Olympic Games World and European Championships as a journalist and sometime as an umpire. Bas was a member of the ETTU Media Committee from 1974 to 1998 and a member of the ITTF Media Committee from 1974 to 1999 from 1989 to 1997 he was chairman and secretary. From 1973 Bas was a member of the Swaythling Club.
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In 1995 on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Table Tennis Association he published the book “History of Dutch Table Tennis (from hobby to sport from pioneer to professional)”. In this book on which he had been working for many years he described the history of Dutch table tennis. In cooperation with national competition manager René van Dijk he compiled two more statistical books under the titles ’70 years in facts and figures (2005) ‘ and ’75 years in facts and figures’ (2011). His last book ‘From ballroom fun game to worldwide sport’ was published in 2012. In this book he approached as indicated by himself the history of table tennis in a scientific way.
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Bas was a man dedicated to table tennis. His work will be continued by the “Friends of Table Tennis” foundation he started. The foundation will continue to record the history of Dutch Table Tennis.
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