West Covina Table Tennis Club

Recently, a key member of the Chinese table-tennis national team caused the wrong kind of news. Wang Hao apparently got into an argument over pee-ing! I'm sure he was being picked on because he is a well-known sports figure, and not because he missed the Olympic gold medal, not once but twice. Poor guy.

This past Tuesday, while club member Khom was warming up during regular club hours, he suddenly stopped because he felt dizzy. In a matter of 3-4 seconds, he no longer responded to queries and collapsed stiffly to the floor. I managed to catch him inches before his head hit the floor. As concerned fellow players gathered around to help, Khom stopped breathing. We had to administer CPR repeatedly to him over the next few minutes as both his breathing and heart stopped and started over and over. Thankfully, paramedics arrived less than 10 minutes later, and with their equipment, was able to monitor Khom's vital signs more accurately. At one point, they were forced to use a defibrillator on him. Thankfully, Khom's vital signs stabilized significantly after that, and he was transported to the hospital.

At this moment, Khom is resting at the hospital and appears to be responding to those around him. Our thoughts are with him and we wish him a speedy recovery.

UPDATE: Khom underwent quintuple by-pass and is now back to work. I've never heard of quintuple by-pass before!

Chinese athletes train like no other in the world, basically sacrificing everything in their lives. However, it is still heartbreaking to hear some of these stories.

First is a story about an athlete who is simply forbidden to quit. (There is no such thing as personal freedom for a Chinese athlete). Second is another story about an athlete who continues to train even though he could go blind because of the training.

Ok, we do have new club hours, officially.

Tuesday and Thursday, 6-9 pm.
Saturday 11 am - 5 pm 12 pm - 4 pm.

Enjoy!

Some of us will remember an old friend, Dowen, who played at the club years ago. Take a look at his new favorite pastime!

Dowen de wikidess keyboard playah pon vocals

The West Covina Senior center is asking our club to change our playing hours. The suggestion is Tuesday and Thursday 6 - 9 pm, and Saturday 10 am - 4 pm. The motivation is to avoid the current situation on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 - 6 pm when the center is also used by an after-school Chinese school. Class dismisses at 6 pm, and the playing area can get overrun by active kids. Play frequently has to be suspended for a few minutes.

While there hasn't been a set date for the new playing hours, it can happen soon, as in within a week. So, now is the time to speak out about it!

Club president Ken is getting an itch to run another tournament. The last one we had was quite successful, with participants from Europe, the East Coast, and elsewhere. If we offer big prizes again, I bet they'll show up again. Any comments?

The club closure seems to have disrupted everyone's routine. We actually had unoccupied tables last Tuesday. This just never happens. It is much more common to have 3 people waiting at every table. So, come on down everybody, there are plenty of tables open!

The club will be closed temporarily from Jan 29 till Feb 5. Our first day back after the closure will be Feb 7. The facility is being painted.

We are going to have a potluck this Saturday, October 6, during club hours. Please bring your favorite dish and join us. We'll welcome anyone, especially if you bring food!

In July, Alan Tanti won the U-1150 and U-1300 in the Long Beach tournament. Then, in August, he won the U-1400 at Pacific Coast 2007 in Santa Monica. That makes it 8 titles so far in 2007. As a point of reference, Roger Federer won 5 titles in 2007.

Can someone else at the club please win something?

Our young Alan is at it again. This time he won the U1000 event at the US Open in Las Vegas. We have a national champion!

Our youngest member, Alan Tanti, has just won the under-1250 event in San Diego. Woo hoo!

We all know what a table-tennis powerhouse China is. Their athletes train harder than anyone. What we seldom hear about is the athletes who had the dream, trained till their bodies broke, and yet still didn't make it. It is a truly heartbreaking situation. Take, for instance, the 9-year-old girl who trained for running the marathon, until her feet deformed. Her parents didn't even know about it, because they were the ones who sent her off as part of their dreams:

When her feet hurt so much that she couldn't walk or pull on her shoes, she said, her coach simply gave her more shots to numb the pain and told her to keep on running. Now the bones of her toes are so deformed that she doesn't dare go sockless or buy shoes in public.

"My father rarely sheds a tear, but when he saw my feet, he was bawling," said Guo, who lives with her parents.

Story at the LA Times (free subscription required).

Ok, it is nothing to do with table-tennis and extremely disturbing and sickening as well, but I couldn't help showing how brutal the world is. A Kurdish girl was recently stoned to death because she was planning to marry a Muslim man. And the people who stoned her to death even took cameraphone videos of her being killed. It was 1000 grown men vs 1 teenage girl. This is "honor"?