By Callum Ludwig
A veteran of the Croydon and Districts Table Tennis Association is celebrating a milestone birthday and has no plans of retiring from the sport anytime soon.
Helga Spitzer turned 95 on Monday 22 May and still regularly competes in the senior pennant competition on Mondays and Thursdays.
Ms Spitzer started playing table tennis on her lunch break at work when she worked full-time.
“One of the guys said I never learnt to play table tennis properly and one day I said ‘I’d like to show you’ so when I retired I started to come and play here,” she said.
“At first I was very poor. I got perhaps three points, but gradually I learnt and could still learn more. I can’t spin the ball for instance. But I did learn to play better and won some awards and had a good time here.”
On her birthday, Ms Spitzer was set to play her 983rd game in the competition, with her current goal to at least hit 1000 games, which she should achieve by the end of this season.
Ms Spitzer said she still won’t give it up after hitting that goal.
“There’s a big board on the wall where all the names are written on for 250, 500, 750 games and more and I’d like to have 1000,” she said.
“Exercise is very important for me. I do exercises in the morning, I have a set to do and exercise is involved here because when you change the end of the court, you have to walk around and play, and that keeps me going.”
Ms Spitzer has had a hand in helping out in her 30 years within the game, having previously run the senior competition and helped organise school trips and competitions at the centre.
She has even had a chance encounter with former Australian no.1 ranked table tennis player Russell Lavale, who has also played in the Croydon and Districts Table Tennis Association and recognised her at the airport as he prepared for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that year. Mr Lavale also competed at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic Games and the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games.
