ITTF Hall of Fame

Over at OOAK forum the poster ShaolinTT, who always finds interesting stuff, noticed that ITTF has a Hall of Fame. It seems they induct people every odd year.

http://www.ittf.com/museum/HoF/ITTF%20Hall%20of%20Fame.pdf

Warning, ITTF bashing is coming

Waldner and Persson are on the list, of course.  So is Peter Karlsson (?????????).  Not on the list?  Bengtsson, Johansson, Alser or Appelgren.  (In fact, those three Swedes are the only European players from the sponge era included).

WLQ, ZJK, Ma Long, Ma Lin, Wang Hao, Deng Yaping, KLH, Zhing Yining, Wang Nan and many other Chinese are on the list, mostly deservedly (although I am not sure I would include Wang Tao).  But they also include Chen Qi (!!!!!!!!!!!!?????????????)

A Chinese woman named Qiao Hong who did not win any major singles titles, best known as Deng Yaping's doubles partner, but a member of the Chinese Olympic Committee is included.  Ditto another Chinese woman player named Liu Wei (no major single's titles).

Not on the list?  Werner Schlager.  Klampar and Joyner.  Grubba.  Samsonov.  Boll. 

Jimmy McClure of USA is on the list.  Not on the list?  Ruth Aaronson of USA.

Nobuhiko Hasegawa on the list but no Seiji Ono or Ichiro Ogimura.

Not a single Eastern European player from the 70s and 80s is on the list (again they might have been able to choose from Klampar, Joyner or Stipancic!!)

As usual, ITTF really can't get anything right.

Yes. 

To qualify for the Hall of Fame an athlete must have won a minimum of 5 gold medals in World Championships or Olympics.

They include team world titles, along with doubles and mixed doubles.  So if like Chen Qi you are lucky to have strong teammates, but you never win a significant singles event yourself, you get in.  They don't care about World Cup.

So in this case IMHO it is much ado about something.  On what planet is Chen Qi more deserving than Vladimir Samsonov, or Peter Karlsson more deserving than the Appelgren, Bengtsson, or Johannson?

So yes, they explain their criteria.  It doesn't mean they get those right, given the results. 

In the larger scheme of things it is not that big a deal, but I think it reflects overall operation.

Where are Gatien, Saive, Grubba, Kim Taek Soo and Wally Green?????

Xu Xin will be on the list next year just by staying on the winning team at the Worlds.  No need to win anything else gold on his own except a team gold.

fatt wrote: Where are Jaques Secretin, Marty Reisman and igorponger?

Stellan Bengtsson has won a World Championship in Singles, Doubles and Teams. If he doesn't qualify there is something wrong with the qualifications.

jfolsen

It's like saying "But a Grand Slam is only 4 events".

jfolsen

Baal wrote:  Johannson was my idol as a player growing up.  He also had four wttcs (but admittedly never one in singles).

Here is what I found for Kjell Johansson at WTTC.  He was possibly the only player of his generation to look more or less modern in terms of strokes, tactics, etc.  Table tennis was not an Olympic sport in his era.

Bronze	1977 Birmingham	Doubles
Bronze	1977 Birmingham	Team
Bronze	1975 Calcutta	Team
Silver	1973 Sarajevo	Singles
Gold	1973 Sarajevo	Doubles
Gold	1973 Sarajevo	Team
Gold	1969 Munich	Doubles
Gold	1967 Stockholm	Doubles
Bronze	1967 Stockholm	Team
Bronze	1963 Prague	Team

Mikael Appelgren
WTTC

Silver	1995 Tianjin	Men's Team
Gold	1993 Gothenburg	Men's Team
Gold	1991 Chiba City	Men's Team
Gold	1989 Dortmund	Men's Team
Silver	1987 New Delhi	Men's Team
Gold	1985 Gothenburg	Doubles
Silver	1985 Gothenburg	Men's Team
Silver	1983 Tokyo	Men's Team
World Cup
Silver	1994 Nimes	Men's Team
Gold	1990 Ciba city	Men's Team
Bronze	1989 Nairobi	Singles
Gold	1983 Barbados	Singles
Silver	1982 Hong Kong	Singles

The level of thought put into the criteria reeks of low level thinking - no ability to handle nuance.  There is a reason why most people put these decisions in the hands of journalists and experts - even the controversial selections help the sport, believe it or not.

That the Olympic criteria couldn't be removed for pre-1988 players, or that distinctions couldn't be made between individual and team accomplishments, or that there couldn't be some way to weigh finalists and semi-finalist appearances - can't stop counting the ways this is just wrong even if one just wanted to use numbers.

But even the great stories - Schlager and Ryu have to be in the HOF.  Period.

I am a bit ambivalent about all this - whether ITTF Hall of Fame exists or not is not such a big deal to me. Soccer does not have one, as far as I know, and nobody seems to be upset.

Chen Qi had many opportunities to compete in the WTTC, World Cup, ITTF Pro Tour Grand Finals, and Olympics, and never won a singles title in any of those events.  He also never won his continental championship in singles.  This is in marked contrast to, for example, Boll, Samsonov, Gatien, Appelgren, Primorac, Rosskopf, Ma Wenge, Klampar, and even Jun Mitzutani.  His most significant singles championships were at the 2011 English Open and 2004 Volkswagen Open in Kobe, Japan.  Any case you make for him would have to be based on his doubles championships.  And that should certainly count for something.  He is a really good player but I don't think you can put him above Boll or Samsonov on the basis of his career accomplishments.

As for the Hall of Fame, if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right. The way ITTF does it currently is not right.

Haggis and I want to create an independent one.  We would have different criteria, possibly name a panel of people from here and over at OOAK forum and vote people in.  

Yes, that list is... strange. Many internationally recognized, accomplished players/great sportsmen are missing.

Haggis and I will return in the not too distant future with more on this.  Agree NL, too many great players have been excluded, that is the problem.