Valentina Ivanovna Popova (russian: Валентина Ивановна Попова) (born 21 November 1960 in
Sumgait
Sumgait (; az, Sumqayıt, ) is a city in Azerbaijan, located near the Caspian Sea, on the Absheron Peninsula, about away from the capital Baku. The city has a population of around 345,300, making it the second largest city in Azerbaijan after Bak ...
) is a former Soviet, and then Slovak, international
table tennis player.
Table tennis career
From 1976 to 1994, she won 18 medals at the
Table Tennis European Championships
The European Table Tennis Championships is an international table tennis competition for the national teams of the member associations of the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU). First held in 1958, the ETTU organised the European Championships ever ...
. At the European Championships in 1984, she won all four possible gold medals
(singles, team (USSR), doubles (with Narine Antonyan), and mixed doubles (with
Jacques Secretin), becoming the second ever absolute European women table tennis champion (
Zoja Rudnova was the first one to do that in 1970).
She is a multiple USSR National champion - six times in singles, five times in doubles, and three times in mixed doubles.
See also
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List of table tennis players
References
External links
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1960 births
Living people
Russian female table tennis players
Slovak female table tennis players
Soviet table tennis players
Table tennis players at the 1988 Summer Olympics
Table tennis players at the 1992 Summer Olympics
Table tennis players at the 1996 Summer Olympics
Olympic table tennis players for the Soviet Union
Olympic table tennis players for the Unified Team
Olympic table tennis players for Slovakia
Sportspeople from Sumgait
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