Atanda Musa

Atanda Musa (born February 3, 1960 ) is a Nigerian table tennis player and trainer. He was African champion several times and took part in seven world championships and two Olympic Games .

Career

Atanda Musa first attracted international attention in 1978 when he finished second in the individual at the Africa Games . In the course of his career he developed into one of the best table tennis players in Africa and achieved the greatest successes at the African Championships and the African Games. He won a total of eight titles at the African Championships:

• 1980 with the team; in singles and doubles he came second
• 1985 in singles, mixed and with the team; in doubles he came second
• 1988 individually and with the team; in doubles he reached the semifinals
• 1990 in doubles and with the team; In singles he was in the final, in mixed in the semi-finals.

After 1978 he took part in the Africa Games twice. Here he won gold in all four disciplines in 1987 and 1991 (singles, doubles, mixed, team). He was also successful in the Commonwealth Championships: Here he won three golds, namely in 1982 in singles and doubles with Sunday Eboh and again in 1985 in doubles with Francis Sule .

However, Atanda Musa did not come close to the world's top performance. In appearances at seven world championships between 1979 and 1991, he never came close to medal ranks. He also missed the main round in both the 1988 Olympic Games and the 1992 Olympic Games in singles and doubles.

At the World Cup he came 8th in 1984 and 10th in 1987, and 13th in 1985 , 1988 and 1989 .

In 1981 he reached rank 40 in the ITTF world rankings .

Atanda Musa has also been working as a trainer since 1992. After working in Saudi Arabia (1992–1995), Qatar (1995–1997), Nigeria (1997–1999), he came to the USA, where he worked as a coach and manager at the Manhattan Table Tennis Club in New York City.

Private

Atanda Musa is married and has three children.

Web links

• Results from the ITTF database (accessed August 21, 2017)
• Atanda Musa in the Sports-Reference database (archived from the original ) (accessed August 21, 2017)
• [Hodge] Larry Hodges: Atanda Musa: Player & Coach , 2000 (accessed August 21, 2017)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Winners - Commonwealth Table Tennis Championships (accessed August 21, 2017)
2. ↑ Best ever, Quadri Aruna votes for Atanda Musa Article from July 13, 2017 on ittf.com (accessed August 21, 2017)
3. ↑ [Hodge] states that the best WRL placement is 20. This is not plausible, because this overview ( memento of the original from January 10, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. shows the first 30 WRL placements from 1947 to 2001, and Musa does not appear here. It is probably a typo in [Hodge]. 
4. ↑ ^{a b} [Hodge]