During the 1979 world Championships in Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea, China no longer gave a single table tennis match away intentionally. On the last day the Korean lady defender Li Song Buk was forced to submit to the material player He Xinai in front of her home supporters, twenty thousand screaming North Koreans.

It ‘s getting busier and more crowded in the stands in Ahoy. I’m  sitting in section DC in the first tier of the arena. If you take time to look around you,  you realise what a nice event this is. Perhaps even more special than you thought. Really un-Dutch. Or is this is being a little unfair?

On Wednesday 23 March 2011 I got into the train from Veenendaal  to Rotterdam. Not for a tourist day-trip, wandering through this fine city and visiting Blijdorp or the Euromast. No; I was going on a “working visit”. Our Queen and her ministers do this fairly regularly; why, then, shoudn’t I? I’d asked my wife to join me so that we could first wander through the city and stop for coffee at an open-air café somewhere. In the afternoon we were going to the Topsport Centre.  During this period the beating heart of the World Championships organisation has its headquarters there, on the sixth floor.

On Wednesday 23 March 2011 I got into the train from Veenendaal  to Rotterdam. Not for a tourist day-trip, wandering through this fine city and visiting Blijdorp or the Euromast. No; I was going on a “working visit”. Our Queen and her ministers do this fairly regularly; why, then, shoudn’t I? I’d asked my wife to join me so that we could first wander through the city and stop for coffee at an open-air café somewhere. 

Mirjam Hooman and I won our first bronze medals in Gothenburg in 1985, with Jan Vlieg as our coach. Our second in New Delhi, India, two years later. New Delhi was such an absurd World Championships, with terrible scenes of hopelessness outside the hall, and stomach cramps inside the hall, that it still remains engraved in my memory. Nevertheless, now with Gerard Bakker as our coach, we again reached the semi-final of the ladies’ team championship.

During a splendid winter sport holiday in Austria you should be worrying about the green slopes; however, my main concern, once again, was table tennis. The subject came up during a splendid après-ski discussion while I was drinking my favourite drink. That’s right – with a slice of lemon, a stamper and without the blocks of ice.

We've just had a busy table tennis weekend once again, and I'm standing in the kitchen on Monday morning recovering. Well, actually, I'm sunk deep in thought.

Surely it won't be long now before they start telephoning or knocking at the door: the player brokers in table tennis circles.

Table tennis can make you rich!