Dal Joon Lee

Dal Joon Lee (May 30, 1939 in Wonju, South Korea – September 19, 2010) was an American table tennis player. He participated in four world championships in the 1960s and 1970s and won six consecutive U.S. Open Table Tennis Championships.

Career

Dal Joon Lee began playing table tennis at the age of 8, after watching his older brothers and sisters. During the Korean War, his father, two brothers and a sister were killed.[1] He continued playing table tennis soon after and, through intensive training, became a skilled player. He won the Korean Championship consecutively between 1960 and 1964.

He began playing professionally under the flag of South Korea. In 1960, he competed in the Asian Championships, where he came second in the men's singles tournament, losing to the Japanese player, Ichiro Ogimura. Previously in the competition, he had won victories against Japan's Nobuya Hoshino (then 16th in the world rankings) and Teruo Murakami (WRL 4th place).[2]

At the Asian Games in 1962, he reached the final in the team competition. In 1964, he became the national South Korean champion. He then emigrated to the US.

In the mid-1960s, he performed in exhibition games along with Richard Bergmann for the Harlem Globetrotters.

From 1968 to 1973, Lee won the U.S. Open Table Tennis Championships six times in a row. Between 1969 and 1975, he was nominated for all four World Championships, but never came close to medal ranks.

In the season of 1977/78 he was an active player in Germany for the sports team TSV Selk.

In 1983, he was inducted into the Table Tennis Hall of Fame of the USA.[3]

Personal life

Dal Joon Lee married Linda Williams in 1967. They had a son together in 1968. In 1975, he entered into a second marriage with the South Korean table tennis player, He-Ja, who played in the mid-1970s at the German Bundesliga club TSV Kronshagen and participated in the 1979 World Table Tennis Championships. From this marriage, Lee had three children.

On September 19, 2010, Lee died of bile duct cancer at the age of 71.

Statistics from ITTF database

Association event year place country singles doubles Mixed team
United States Asian Championship TTFA 1960 Bombay IND silver
United States Asian Games 1962 Jakarta INA 5 2
United States World Championships 1975 Calcutta IND last 128 torment torment 19
United States World Championships 1973 Sarajevo YUG last 128 last 32 torment 17
United States World Championships 1971 Nagoya JPN last 64 last 32 last 64 28
United States World Championships 1969 Munich FRG last 128 last 32 torment 18

Literature

Olaf Brockmann: Guests from South Korea, DTS Magazine, 1977/21 Issue North-East Page 6

References

  1. ^ Eskenazi, Gerald. "King of Table Tennis Dal‐Joon Lee". Retrieved November 23, 2018.
  2. ^ Tim Boggan: In Memoriam: Dal-Joon (DJ) Lee, 1939–2010 (USA) at Swaythling Club International News Archived November 23, 2018, at the Wayback Machine No. 90, March 2011, page 20 (accessed July 2, 2015)
  3. ^ "USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame Profile – Dal Joon Lee". Team USA. Archived from the original on May 1, 2015. Retrieved November 23, 2018.