Ichiro Ogimura

Who was Ichiro Ogimura?

Ichiro Ogimura was a Japanese table tennis player. Ogimura's father died when he was two and his mother often worked too late to take care of him. As a teenager, Ogimura practiced table tennis at the hall run by Hisae Uehara in Musashino, Tokyo. He won the All-Japan National Championship and represented Japan at the World Championships. He won 12 world titles at the Championships including men's singles in 1954 and 1956, together with 5 consecutive titles in the team competitions.

After his retirement, Ogimura coached overseas in Sweden, China and USA. He got involved in Japanese Olympic Committee and Japan Table Tennis Association. He became an executive member of the International Table Tennis Federation in 1973 and president in 1987. In 1994, Ogimura died of lung cancer. He was inducted into the ITTF Hall of Fame in 1997.