The ITTF GJP Blog

A forty five year old native of Sweden. Grew up in the far north and was introduced to Table Tennis when his father , who was the “gym-teacher” in a village of 800 inhabitants,  took interest in the sport and pushed the local sport club – Mörsils IF to start competing in the league system.

Short term success came for the small club when a coach from Stockholm was engaged to travel up north at every single school break for training camps… The club developed and so did a young Mr Andersson who became fairly successful in district and regional tournaments.  The good spirit of self-confidence however quickly evaporated when the realities were checked in tournaments organized in the South Sweden.

How come that the “rule” of not playing Friday night if you happened to have a competition on Saturday didn’t apply to those individuals who apparently practiced every day down South ?

Moved to the west coast of Sweden for studies and finally ended up coaching for the Halmstad BTK club in 1983… Worked hard , studied the game and was pushed through to the highest level of coaching education in Sweden. Got the opportunity to coach at international level for the Swedish Junior National team as the responsible coach for the Junior girls team at the 1986 European Junior Championships in Belgium.

The rest feels like only a few years ago.  Took the Danish National Team in 1987 and worked as described later as the General and Front-soldier for seven years.  Simply a great time serving the ideals and  the ambition of  a very special group of  people… Enjoyed, after a few  tough initial years some success with the Danish Junior National team who advanced their level significantly during those years.

After a detour back to Sweden  for coaching and event management (Europe Top 12 – 1998 in Halmstad) the ITTF together with  Canadian Table Tennis Association presented a joint proposual to move to North America in 1999.

Wrote the ITTF Global Junior Programme already in the year  2000 , following a series of interesting and challenging  High Performance courses all around the world.  Started as the ITTF Global Junior Programme coordinator in the fall of 2001.. The trial year was 2002 and from that point we were in business.

Enjoys family time with his common law “wife” since 25 years –  Madeleine . Plays the odd golf rounds with his 18 year old son Robin and enjoys seeing Douglas 12 year old emerge as a decent keeper in Soccer. Loves Ice-hockey and the NHL. Chats around with his clever daughter who now suddenly is 16 years old.