Word: ogimura
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...elsewhere. In Europe and, above all, in Asia, table tennis is definitely a big-league sport and sometimes a national obsession. Japan, which began to dominate international competition shortly after World War II, has an estimated 40,000 tournament players. Former Japanese table-tennis greats like Ichiro Ogimura are as revered as Babe Ruth was in the U.S. In the early 1960s the Red Chinese also moved into the top world ranks. Now some 100 million Chinese play the sport, and one plant in Canton alone produces 70,000 balls a day. Premier Chou Enlai, himself a buff, urges...
...Head. From dawn till dusk, Red China's 38-player squad hammered away at the ball, pausing for tea and calisthenics every half-hour or so. "These Chinese," marveled Japan's former World Champion Ichiro Ogimura, "play basketball and volleyball and do special exercises. They practice gymnastics to develop agility, lift weights to build up certain muscles." They also keyed themselves to fever pitch emotionally. China's Hsu Yin-sheng explained that his forehand was so powerful because he looked on a Ping-Pong ball "as though it were the head of Chiang Kai-shek...
...Richard Bergmann could do little against the Japanese: he stopped one match to complain that the ball was too soft and not really round, took half an hour, examined 192 balls before he continued his play for the men's singles title. The winner: Japan's Ichiro Ogimura, in an all-Japanese final against Defending Champion Toshiaki Tanaka...
Japan was so pleased at being allowed to hold this year's championship, that the government issued a special ten-yen (3?) stamp. When the Swaythling Cup winners were awarded their prize, Captain Ichiro Ogimura took a small snapshot from his pocket and held it in front of the silver trophy. It was a picture of Kichiji Tamasu, 21-year-old team star, who died of a heart attack last January. Said Ogimura with due solemnity: "I thought he should know...
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