The ITTF Museum and Table Tennis History

berndtjgmann · Feb 19, 2018

Here, pasted from ittf.com/museum/history, is a picture of the new ITTF museum:

[h=1]Museum[/h] <figure id="attachment_11936" style="max-width: 700px" class="wp-caption aligncenter">

<figcaption class="wp-caption-text">The new ITTF Museum in Shanghai is expected to open in late 2017.</figcaption></figure> [h=2]Info[/h] The ITTF Museum preserves & promotes the heritage of Table Tennis in 3 sections:

It is a very sleek looking new museum, replacing the former museum located in Lausanne, Switzerland. It purports to preserve and promote the heritage of table tennis in three sections.

There is one present problem, however. When I try to click into any of the three sections, a page comes up saying error code 404--page not found. I believe that the sport of table tennis does have a history and a heritage. I hope that the International Table Tennis Federation would once again make that history and heritage available online to all who are interested and who are unable to travel to Shanghai, China to see the technical evolution, the culture, and the sport history of the ITTF at the museum itself.

zeio · Feb 19, 2018

I think they shied away after witnessing how much of a fountain of knowledge and an authority on table tennis history and heritage you proved yourself to be, Berndt.

berndtjgmann · Feb 19, 2018

zeio said:
I think they shied away after witnessing how much of a fountain of knowledge and an authority on table tennis history and heritage you proved yourself to be, Berndt.

That of course remains a possibility among a number of possibilities, but one would think, zeio, that before building an edifice that seems to serve no purpose except for looking impressive that an ITTF representative might have consulted me, who at one time was on a first name basis with Chuck Hoey, former curator of the Lausanne ITTF museum and possibility the world's foremost authority on the kinds and pip configurations of rubbers used by Parker Brothers, Harvard, Bernard Hock, the MacCrossen brothers, Slazenger, Dunlop, S.W. Hancock, John Jaques and Dr. Simon, on the various types of pebbled rubbers used by elite, national and international players from the period 1926 to 1955, when Angelica Rozeanu won the last World Singles Championship by any player using a classic "hard" rubber racket.

But no. So far nothing but a Potemkin village of a museum. No e-mails from any ITTF representative. Sad.

But who needs history and heritage anyway? The ITTF can start from 2018, with exhibits of the various types of uniforms worn by today's titans, encomiums to their virtuosity, 40 mm. balls and 40+ mm. balls, acetate and celluloid, rubbers, tensored and untensored, spring sponges, boosters, videos showing how to properly execute a semilegal loose grip conventional and reverse sidespin serve, and strawberry, blueberry and chiquita banana flips. I don't think that Weikert or the present curator of the ITTF museum (whoever that is, or indeed if there is one) would mind, and that would save a lot of time and effort recollecting a lot of historical stuff that not that many of today's table tennis players care about anyway.

killiegradge · May 15, 2018

Has anyone here been to either the new museum or even the old one in Lausanne?
I have hundreds of table tennis magazines from all over the world dating back to the early 1980's including Table Tennis News and the amazing Butterfly Table tennis Report from Japan.

zzzuppp · May 16, 2018

I've exchanged a few emails with Chuck (Hoey) about this. His hand was forced in moving the Museum to China: that was some kind of ITTF politicking, and he feels that the historical portion of the Museum, all the many documents etc., ought to be in the old world because that's where the sport was founded and flourished.
As far as I know Chuck is still the Museum Curator: if you look at the magazine he regularly produces (ITTF Collector) the latest issue is all about the Museum transfer and it seems to suggest that Chuck still has an honorary role at least - there's a link at the bottom of the main ITTF page under History - https://d3mjm6zw6cr45s.cloudfront.net/2018/04/MuseumOpeningSpecialEdition.pdf

Meanwhile whether all the many documents that Chuck compiled on the old Museum site (the ones that Berndt has found to be missing) will ever reappear is a moot point. The history of the game and the records pertaining to it seem to be an area of very low interest and priority to the Senior members of the ITTF committees and the ITTF webmasters. I have been lobbying them since at least 1999 to get their house in order with respect to statistics from major championships gone by, webpages relating to the various past events, and so on. Chuck, with the help of a small and devoted army of volunteers and researchers like myself, has been assembling this information patiently over the years without much support from above, only to see it all whisked away to China, where its fate remains uncertain. Great for the Chinese, but it would be nice for the rest of us to get it back online; but I'm not holding my breath.

zeio · May 17, 2018

Communization of ITTF Museum completed. Mwahahaha....

igorponger · May 18, 2018

ITTF Museum is a futile institution unless they take care to re-open the Internet Live Gallery you can access via your home PC directly.

People do prefer visiting internet museums rather than take airplane trips overseas, yes

zeio · May 19, 2018

In keeping with the spirit of museum, I spent roughly 2 days collecting tons of news videos on the grand opening of the relocated ITTF Museum and the brand-new China Table Tennis Museum in Shanghai this April.

Quite a few of them feature the former curator and now honorary curator Chuck Hoey. 1 of them is feature-length tour of the Museum with the current curator Shi Zhihao and Double Grand Slam holder Zhang Yining. Thomas Weikert and Jorgen Persson appeared as guests at the grand opening.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9EFgw_X3V0ytujX92_fwhBP5oLKSxqX-

“But the interest in Switzerland was not great … only a few thousand visitors,” said Chuck Hoey, former curator of the ITTF Museum. Due to limited visitors to the museum in Lausanne and China’s contributions to the development of table tennis, the ITTF decided in 2014 to move the museum to Shanghai, which was planning the China Table Tennis Museum around the same time.

https://www.shanghaieye.com.cn/table-tenniss-best-at-world-class-museum/

国际乒联博物馆和中国乒乓球博物馆馆长施之皓表示……“我曾经去过洛桑的国际乒联博物馆，那里建馆十年间的参观者只有5000人次，而到了上海，可能一周不到的时间就能达到过去十年的人次。乒博馆落户上海获得国际乒联执委会的一致通过，这一决定也得到了国际乒联所有协会会员的肯定。”

("I have been to the ITTF Museum in Lausanne. Only 5000 people visited over 10 years after its establishment. But in Shanghai, it would probably reach that number in under a week. The proposal to relocate the Museum to Shanghai was unanimously passed at the AGM. This decision was supported by all member associations," said ITTF Museum and China Table Tennis Museum Curator Shi Zhihao.)
http://newspaper.jfdaily.com/jfrb/html/2018-03/30/content_74835.htm

In one video, it's stated 1500 people visited on the 1st day of opening.

Suga D · May 19, 2018

I have absolutely no problem with the relocation.
But as mentioned by others i would like it also to be available online and maybe also go on tour like at WTTC too. That would be nice.

zeio · May 19, 2018

The ITTF holds a Museum roadshow at every WTTC. One of those videos from 2015 mentions that.

Slowly but surely, the missing document archive is being rebuilt. The major thing missing right now are the documents for AGM and BoD decisions, those contain invaluable information that comes in really handy when gearing up for a flame war.

zeio · May 20, 2018

The original ITTF museum opened in Lausanne in 2005. A year before that, ITTF contacted Hoey asking whether he would like to build a museum and showcase his ping-pong collection to the public.

Hoey described this as a miracle. "Soon I was on a plane to Switzerland, to begin the official ITTF Museum," he recalled excitedly. In an old chateau near Lausanne, Hoey was giving a 10-room venue to build the museum.

Being called China's national sport, table tennis is enjoyed by Chinese of all ages. But it is less prevalent in the West. During the former ITTF museum's 10-year operation from 2005 to 2014, only 5,000 people had ever visited in total.

"Then another miracle happened: Shanghai government officials visited the museum," Hoey said. "Impressed by the collection, they suggested we transfer the museum to Shanghai. ITTF later made the decision after a few discussions and arrangements."

Hoey believes that Shanghai is an ideal new home for the museum. He once organized a temporary exhibition during the 2005 World Table Tennis Championships in Shanghai, where he was impressed by local people's enthusiasm for ping pong.

"I'm very happy about the move to China, a country where the sport is loved, and where there is a great, long tradition of success of Chinese athletes," he said. "My expectations about the future are very strong."

http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1096475.shtml

zeio · Jun 1, 2018

zeio said:
Slowly but surely, the missing document archive is being rebuilt. The major thing missing right now are the documents for AGM and BoD decisions, those contain invaluable information that comes in really handy when gearing up for a flame war.

Just noticed the documents for AGM and BoD are back up again.

https://www.ittf.com/documents/

zzzuppp · Jun 1, 2018

Well, about time. What's it taken - three, four years?

BORNINHKG · Jun 1, 2018

I was at WTTC 2011 here in the Netherlands. I saw a mini museum edition of it.

The ITTF Museum and Table Tennis History

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