Ichiro Ogimura

Japanese: 荻村伊知朗 - おぎむらいちろう

1932-94 (Showa 7-Heisei 6)
Former world champion in table tennis. He started playing table tennis as a freshman at Tokyo Metropolitan Nishi High School, and won his first Japan Softball Table Tennis Championship in 1952. In 1953, the year after he transferred from Tokyo Metropolitan University to the Film Department of the College of Art at Nihon University, he won the All Japan Hardball Table Tennis Championship, and in 1954, he won his first World Championship in London. From then until his retirement in 1965, he won 12 titles at the World Championships. He was known worldwide as a smart player, and built the golden age of Japanese table tennis. Even after his retirement, he contributed to international exchange through sports, visiting China the year before the World Championships in Nagoya in 1971, and creating a thread of ping-pong diplomacy that led to the normalization of relations between the United States and China. He also worked hard to form the first unified North and South Korean team in the sports world, Korea, at the World Championships in 1991.

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

1932‐94(昭和7‐平成6)
元卓球世界チャンピオン。都立西校の1年生から卓球を始め，1952年に日本軟式卓球選手権に初出場し初優勝した。都立大から日本大学芸術学部映画学科に移った翌53年，全日本硬式卓球選手権に優勝，さらに54年にロンドンで開催された世界選手権でも初優勝をかざった。これ以後，現役を退く65年までに世界選手権で12のタイトルを獲得。頭脳的プレーヤーとして世界に知られ，日本卓球界の黄金時代を築き上げた。現役引退後も，71年名古屋での世界選手権の前年に訪中し，米中国交正常化につながるピンポン外交の糸口をつくりだし，91年の世界選手権ではスポーツ界で初の南北朝鮮統一チーム〈コリア〉結成に尽力するなど，スポーツを通じた国際交流に貢献した。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

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