Born in 1965, Jan-Ove Waldner was quickly spotted as a potential star of the table tennis and at the age of 17, he already was a part of the Swedish national team at the 1982 European Table Tennis Championships in Hungary. Waldner succeeded in a period when there was an incredibly high amount of talents born in Europe. There were stars, like Jörgen Persson, Jean-Michel Saive, Zoran Primorac and Andrzej Grubba standing on the way to the medals and titles, but the Swede was the one to impress the most and have a lasting legacy.
Waldner also became an example of a great longevity and he played through the different eras of table tennis. In the beginning of his career, the legendary Swede competed against the stars of the 70’s, like the legendary Hungarian Tibor Klampar. Towards the end of it, Waldner played against the modern-day table tennis stars, like Ma Long, Mattias Falck and others. His professional career lasted for more than 30 years. Just keep that number in mind.
Below you can see our latest video about the career of Jan-Ove Waldner and some of the numbers about his accolades. Don’t forget to subscribe to our channel and leave your thoughts in the comment section. If you want to see more videos like this about table tennis legends, leave a comment as well with a name of the player you would like to see next.
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