Richard Bergmann (table tennis player)

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Richard Bergmann
Richard Bergmann, 1950

Richard Bergmann (born April 10, 1919 in Vienna , † April 5, 1970 in the London Borough of Wandsworth ) was a table tennis player . (Some sources state that he was born in 1918 or 1920, while other sources state that he died in 1969.) He was four times individual world champion, once as an Austrian and three times as an Englishman.

Career

Bergmann was born in Vienna to Polish and Italian parents, both Jews; he had four sisters and one brother. In 1937 he became world champion for the first time. At 17 years old, he is the youngest table tennis world champion to this day (2019). A year earlier he had already won the World Team Championship with the Austrian team.

When the Germans incorporated Austria in 1938, he emigrated to England as a native Jew. He started as an Englishman at the 1938 World Cup ; he was again world champion in singles and doubles. In 1946 he took English citizenship.

During the Second World War he worked for the Royal Air Force , in particular as a translator for interrogations of prisoners. To do this, he used his language skills in German, Italian, Dutch, French and Polish.

After the war he became world champion again in 1948 and 1950. In 1951 he was unable to defend his title because the English table tennis association ETTA banned him from June 30, 1950 for unauthorized competitions in South Africa. At the 1954 World Cup , he won a team battle against all three Japanese. His marriage to Eileen (or Ellen) O'Flynn, entered into in 1948, was divorced two years later.

In 1950 he published the book Twenty-one Up (Sporting Handbooks, London).

In the mid-1950s, Bergmann began to earn his living playing table tennis, initially staging exhibition fights with Johnny Leach and then going on tour with the American Harlem Globetrotters basketball team , accompanied at times by the American Robert Gusikoff. He was the first professional in table tennis. Because of these exhibition fights he was banned again in England in the early 1960s. Therefore, he joined the American table tennis association in 1963.

In 1970 Bergmann died of a brain tumor.

Honors

Bergmann was considered an excellent defender with excellent positional play and great self-confidence. He was sometimes called Richard the Lionheart . The Richard Bergmann Fair Play Award was named after him in 1970 , a prize awarded by the SCI ( Swaythling Club International ) for particularly fair behavior by a player.

In 1982 Bergmann was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame .

successes

  • World championships
    • 1936 in Prague: 3rd place individual, 1st place with team Austria,
    • 1937 in Baden: World Champion in singles, 2nd place doubles with Helmut Goebel, 4th place with Team Austria
    • 1938 in London: 2nd place individual, 2nd place with team Austria
    • 1939 in Cairo: world champion in singles, 1st place doubles with Victor Barna
    • 1948 in London: World Champion in singles, 3rd place doubles with Victor Barna , 3rd place mixed with Angelica Adelstein-Rozeanu (ROM)
    • 1949 in Stockholm: 3rd place doubles with Tage Flisberg (SWE), 3rd place with Team England
    • 1950 in Budapest: World Champion in singles, 3rd place with Team England
    • 1952 in Bombay: 2nd place doubles with Johnny Leach , 2nd place with Team England
    • 1953 in Bucharest: 2nd place doubles with Johnny Leach , 1st place with Team England
    • 1954 in London: 3rd place individual, 3rd place with team England
    • 1955 in Utrecht: 3rd place with Team England
  • Open English championships
    • 1939: 1st place individual
    • 1940: 1st place single, 1st place double (with Alfred Liebster )
    • 1948: 1st place single, 1st place double (with days Flisberg )
    • 1950: 1st place singles, 1st place doubles (with Victor Barna )
    • 1952: 1st place individual
    • 1953: 1st place doubles (with Johnny Leach )
    • 1954: 1st place individual

Results from the ITTF database

Association event year place country singles Double Mixed team
CLOSELY  World Championship  1957  Stockholm  SWE   last 128  last 16  no participants  11 
CLOSELY  World Championship  1956  Tokyo  JPN   Quarter finals  Quarter finals  no participants  5 
CLOSELY  World Championship  1955  Utrecht  NED   Quarter finals  Quarter finals  last 64  3
CLOSELY  World Championship  1954  Wembley  CLOSELY   Semifinals  last 16  no participants  3
CLOSELY  World Championship  1953  Bucharest  ROU   last 16  silver  Scratched  1
CLOSELY  World Championship  1952  Bombay  IND   last 32  silver  Quarter finals  2
CLOSELY  World Championship  1950  Budapest  HUN   gold  Quarter finals  Quarter finals  3
CLOSELY  World Championship  1949  Stockholm  SWE   last 16  Semifinals  no participants  3
CLOSELY  World Championship  1948  Wembley  CLOSELY   gold  Semifinals  Semifinals  5 
CLOSELY  World Championship  1939  Cairo  EGY   gold  gold  Quarter finals   
AUT  World Championship  1938  Wembley  CLOSELY   silver  last 32  no participants  2
AUT  World Championship  1937  to bathe  AUT   gold  silver  last 32  4th 
AUT  World Championship  1936  Prague  TCH   Semifinals  last 32  no participants  1

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame (accessed December 3, 2015)
  2. ↑ The Table Tennis Collector, Issue 16, page 10 (PDF; 2.0 MB)
  3. ↑ DTS magazine , 1949/13 page 7
  4. ↑ DTS magazine , 1951/19 issue west-south, page 3
  5. ^ The Times, Apr 6, 1970, p.10
  6. ↑ magazine DTS , 1954/21 1956/5 page 17 and page 16
  7. ↑ DTS magazine , 1963/6 West issue, page 5
  8. ↑ Richard Bergmann (table tennis player) Results from the ITTF database on ittf.com (accessed September 4, 2011)
personal data
SURNAME Bergmann, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian table tennis player
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH April 5th 1970
Place of death London Borough of Wandsworth