After accreditation, there are alltogether 2,739 players competing in the European Veterans Championships. Approx. 5% of the originally entered players did not appear at the accreditation centre. Anyway, the players in Bremen create a new participation re,
After accreditation, there are alltogether 2,739 players competing in the European Veterans Championships. Approx. 5% of the originally entered players did not appear at the accreditation centre. Anyway, the players in Bremen create a new participation record.
The oldest participant is Antonin MOREAU from France, 92 years of age, born 8th of March, 1921, exactly 60 years before Timo BOLL was born on the same day. This means that the youthful musketeer is one month and one day older than Inge-Brigitte HERRMANN who was also born in 1921, on the 9th of April – and managed to become a media star in Germany due to her amazing success in table tennis at the age of over 90.
The youngest players at the event in Bremen are Thomas KÖHNE (born 20th of December 1973) and Katrin RIPKE (born 30th of September 1973), both not quite reaching the club of over 40s.
To travel alone obviously is good for results. The only four single participants per country, Larysa PASHUKEVICH from Belarus (Women 50), Iliya TIMAN from Israel (Men 40), Izet BEGANOVIC from Montenegro and Miroslav JELACA from Serbia (both Men 65) started the tournament very successfully and moved to the main competition proper as winners of their qualifying groups.
The most funny entry “Application photo” came from Jürgen ALBERTS (see photo). He announced to remove one ball from the photo when he loses in singles – and the other one as soon as the doubles event is finished for him. By the way: Jürgen ALBERTS, born in Kirchen/Sieg (Germany) lives in Bremen for many years, is a passionate table tennis player and succesful author of detective novels. Among other awards, he received the “Deutscher Krimi Preis”, an important national award for detective stories, in 1994.
In Bremen, you find many friendships, but also several married couples among the competitors. We do not know if Monika and Christoph OTTO, Wolfgang and Renate BARTEL, Heinz and Hannelore DILLENBERGER, all from Germany, and the German/Welsh couple Regina und Roger GRECH regret missing a (non existing) “mixed doubles” competition or just enjoy their doubles with different partners!
With the former European and German Champion Edit WETZEL (born 19th of May 1941) and her sister Ellen HAAK, real twins take part in the competition. Under their maiden name Buchholz, both Edit and Ellen played table tennis for TTK Grün-Weiß Kiel, but also successfully handball for Holstein Kiel at the beginning of the 60s in the last century.
