TABLE TENNIS NEWS
Mikael the Apple of My Eye
To become 50 is to cross a border.
Probably the time past is more than the time ahead. One realizes that
one has reached the peak of one´s life and has started the walk towards
the final silence.
Most 50 year-old men carry traces of age, signs of baldness, a bloated belly, greying hair.
Mikael Appelgren has passed his peak but
the landmark has not defined any trace of aging. On his birthday, 15th
October 2011, this very young 50-year-old celebrated in a restaurant in
Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
All who hugged him could feel the
firmness in the muscles under the white T-shirt that he had been given
as a present; on the front of which screamed big black letters "when
does one get a hanging pouch"
The Donic legend Mikael Appelgren has
written himself into table tennis history, first as a doubles world and
team champion and then as the first to win the European Men's Singles
title three times. At that time the European Championships were staged
every two years, the gold medals won in Paris 1988 and Gothenburg 1990
underlined his quality, in those years Europe was the best in the world,
clearly stronger than China, Japan and Korea.
In the final of the team event at the
Worlds in Dortmund 1989, when Sweden won 5 - 0 and penetrated the Chinese
table tennis Wall, Apple beat the two dominant names during the 1980s
Jiang Jialiang and Chen Longcan. Appelgren's milestones
1980 European Champion Team
1982 European Champion Singles
1985 World Champion Doubles with Ulf "Tickan" Carlsson
1988 European Champion in Teams, Singles and Doubles
1989 World Champion Team
1990 First to win three Singles title at the European Championships
1991 World Champion Teams
1992 European Champion Teams for the fifth time
1993 World Champion Teams for the third time in a row
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