In 1983 Romania’s Olga Nemes won the women’s title at the 1983 Europe Top 12; she was 14 years and 240 days old.

At the European Youth Championships in 1980 in Poznan, she was a cadet girls’ singles semi-finalist, the following year the winner in Topolcany. Later in 1983 in Malmö and in 1985 in The Hague, she secured junior girls’ singles gold, in the intervening year she was the runner up in Linz.

Now, over 40 years since those successes, she continues to compete; moreover, she continues to win. On Saturday 2nd July, she claimed women’s singles 50-54 years gold at the 2022 European Veteran Championships in Rimini, thus retaining the title won in 2019 in Budapest. Earlier, in 2009 she had secured women’s singles 40-44 years in Porec.

The appetite for competition is a strong as ever, read how for Olga Nemes, table tennis is like a drug…