STOCKHOLM – Sweden’s 50-year-old former Olympic table tennis champion Jan-Ove Waldner played his final competitive game on Thursday to end a glittering career in which he won a slew of world and European titles and became a household name in Asia.
A career spent traversing the globe and beating the best players in his sport ended with a modest league match for his club Sparvagen against BK Rekord in Stockholm. In his final outing ? more than 38 years after he made his debut in elite Swedish table tennis as a 12-year-old ? Waldner won one singles match and lost another before being heralded for his achievements by the Stockholm crowd.
“Fantastic. I don’t think anyone cares about the result,” he told reporters following his final game before explaining why he was hanging up his bat. I felt at the start of the season that enough was enough.”
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