日: 2026-06-28
After 40 years, Peru — playing together at the World Masters Championships in Korea!
Magali Montes-san, President of the Peruvian Table Tennis Federation, is my mixed-doubles partner at the WMC in Korea. We first met in Lima in 1983, when I served as a coach there though Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers program. Then, she was 14 and I was 22. Milagritos Gorriti-san, a physical education teacher, when I met her, she was 10 and just starting to play table tennis.
Isn’t it a miracle and a blessing that we played together at a prestigious ITTF World Masters Championships after more than 40 years, across borders and time? Magali and Milagritos gave everything—physically and mentally—and won the bronze medal in women’s doubles for Peru. Seeing their joyful tears as their bench-coach again was truly heartening.
Congratulations to Magali and Milagritos for their medal and for their remarkable resilience and performance!!
Magali and I also had a thrilling mixed-doubles experience. We topped and passed the qualification round. In the tournament, we lost the deciding match to reach the semifinals against a very competitive Korean pair. I cherished the precious opportunity to play side by side with Magali-san for the first time in 40 years of our ping-pong lives.
When I left Peru in December 1985, I said to you all and to myself, “We will meet again if we keep playing ping pong in our lives.” It has come true—and even more, we are playing together as lifelong friends.
Thank you, my friends. Thank you, table tennis. Thank you for everything that makes our life meaningful and wonderful.
Happiness via Ping Pong 