Richard Bergmann (10 April 1919 – 5 April 1970) was an Austrian and British international
table tennis
Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...
player. Winner of seven
World Championships
A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...
, including four Singles, one Men's Doubles, two Team's titles and 22 medals in total. He is considered to be one of the greatest players in history, only
Viktor Barna
Viktor Győző Barna (Braun) (24 August 1911 – 27 February 1972) was a Hungarian and British champion table tennis player as well as a record five times singles World Champion.
He won 41 World Championship medals and also won 20 English O ...
has won more World Championship gold medals in singles.
Table tennis career
His 22 World Championship medals include seven
gold medals; two in the men's team, one in the men's doubles at the
1936 World Table Tennis Championships
The 1936 World Table tennis, Table Tennis Championships were held in Prague from March 12 to March 18, 1936.
The championships were criticised for the bad management and poor tables. The Lucerna Palace arena (a 4,000-seat, underground concert hal ...
with
Viktor Barna
Viktor Győző Barna (Braun) (24 August 1911 – 27 February 1972) was a Hungarian and British champion table tennis player as well as a record five times singles World Champion.
He won 41 World Championship medals and also won 20 English O ...
and four times in the singles at the 1937, 1939, 1948 and 1950.
Legacy
Bergmann was inducted into the
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere arou ...
in 1982,
and into the
International Table Tennis Foundation Hall of Fame This page lists the members inducted in the ITTF Hall of Fame – founded in 1993 – in the order as they appear in the official hall of fame maintained by the International Table Tennis Federation. The ITTF Hall of Fame includes both table tennis ...
in 1993 as one of twelve founding members.
Since 1967, the Richard Bergmann Fair Play Trophy is contested at the Liebherr World Championships.
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See also
* List of select Jewish table tennis players
* List of table tennis players
This list of table tennis players is alphabetically ordered by surname. The main source of the information included in this page is the official International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) database. More detailed information about their careers is ...
* List of World Table Tennis Championships medalists
Results of individual events
The tables below are medalists of individual events (men's and women's singles, men's and women's doubles and mixed).
Men's singles
Medal table
Women's singles
The champion of women's singles in 1937 was declared ...
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bergmann, Richard
1919 births
1970 deaths
Sportspeople from Vienna
Austrian male table tennis players
Jewish table tennis players
Austrian Jews
Austrian people of Polish-Jewish descent
Austrian people of Italian descent
English Jews
English people of Austrian-Jewish descent
Jews who immigrated to the United Kingdom to escape Nazism
English male table tennis players