Abstract
Meiden School president Gotō Kōji created a table tennis club in April 1930, in order to elevate the morale of the students, when Japan was hit by a serious financial crisis in 1927 and then by the Great Depression in 1929. Gotō chose table tennis as the official school sport because it was suited for Japan’s geography (small land area) and climate (rainy weather). It did not take much space and did not cost much. It was an easily accessible sport for everyone. This small table tennis club would produce world-class players in the postwar period and become the “cradle of Ping-Pong Diplomacy” four decades later.
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© 2011 Mayumi Itoh
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Itoh, M. (2011). Gotō and Table Tennis. In: The Origin of Ping-Pong Diplomacy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230339354_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230339354_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-29812-9
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-33935-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)