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The Most Famous

TABLE TENNIS PLAYERS from Sweden

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This page contains a list of the greatest Swedish Table Tennis Players. The pantheon dataset contains 79 Table Tennis Players, 7 of which were born in Sweden. This makes Sweden the birth place of the 4th most number of Table Tennis Players behind South Korea and Japan.

Top 7

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Swedish Table Tennis Players of all time. This list of famous Swedish Table Tennis Players is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

Photo of Jan-Ove Waldner

1. Jan-Ove Waldner (1965 - )

With an HPI of 54.84, Jan-Ove Waldner is the most famous Swedish Table Tennis Player.  His biography has been translated into 34 different languages on wikipedia.

Jan-Ove Waldner (Swedish: [ˈjɑːn uːvɛ ˈvǎldnɛr]; born 3 October 1965), in Sweden commonly J-O Waldner (Swedish: [ˈjiː uː], is a Swedish former professional table tennis player. He is often referred to as "the Mozart of table tennis." A sporting legend in his native Sweden as well as in China, he is known in China as 老瓦 Lǎo Wǎ ("Old Wa") or 常青树 Cháng Qīng Shù ("Evergreen Tree"), because of his extraordinary longevity and competitiveness. As of July 2023, he is the only person to win an Olympic table tennis gold medal representing a non-Asian country.

Photo of Jörgen Persson

2. Jörgen Persson (1966 - )

With an HPI of 47.87, Jörgen Persson is the 2nd most famous Swedish Table Tennis Player.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Jörgen Persson (born 22 April 1966, in Halmstad, Sweden) is a Swedish table tennis player.

Photo of Mikael Appelgren

3. Mikael Appelgren (1961 - )

With an HPI of 43.72, Mikael Appelgren is the 3rd most famous Swedish Table Tennis Player.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Kent Mikael Appelgren (born 15 October 1961 in Stockholm) is a Swedish former table tennis player.

Photo of Stellan Bengtsson

4. Stellan Bengtsson (1952 - )

With an HPI of 42.70, Stellan Bengtsson is the 4th most famous Swedish Table Tennis Player.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Stellan Bengtsson (born 26 July 1952) is a Swedish former table tennis player. He became the first Swede to win the men's singles at the World Table Tennis Championships in 1971. He has won three World championships, seven European championships and 65 International championships. He also won seven English Open titles.

Photo of Kjell Johansson

5. Kjell Johansson (1946 - 2011)

With an HPI of 41.77, Kjell Johansson is the 5th most famous Swedish Table Tennis Player.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Kjell Johansson (5 October 1946 – 24 October 2011) was a male table tennis player from Sweden.From 1963 to 1977 he won several medals in singles, doubles, and team events in the European Table Tennis Championships and in the World Table Tennis Championships. He won the 1965 Svenska Dagbladet Gold Medal. He was a native of Eskilstuna. He also won three English Open titles. Johansson was called Hammaren, which means "The Hammer" in Swedish, because of his hard forehand. His brother Christer Johansson was also an international table tennis player. Johansson died in Eksjö on 24 October 2011, aged 65, following a long illness.

Photo of Erik Lindh

6. Erik Lindh (1964 - )

With an HPI of 37.72, Erik Lindh is the 6th most famous Swedish Table Tennis Player.  His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Erik Lindh (born 24 May 1964, in Kungälv) is a former international Swedish table tennis player who competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics and in the 1992 Summer Olympics.In the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, he finished in third place and won the bronze medal.He was a member of the winning Swedish teams in the 1989, 1991, and 1993 World Table Tennis Team Championships. He also won an English Open title. Lindh was a pioneer of the style of looping the ball very early - often straight after the bounce.

Photo of Peter Karlsson

7. Peter Karlsson (1969 - )

With an HPI of 36.06, Peter Karlsson is the 7th most famous Swedish Table Tennis Player.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Karl Peter Karlsson (born 29 May 1969 in Stenstorp, Sweden) is a table tennis player. He was 1991 World Champion in men's doubles (with Thomas von Scheele), and 2000 European Champion in men's singles he is married to Åsa Karlsson.

Pantheon has 7 people classified as table tennis players born between 1946 and 1969. Of these 7, 6 (85.71%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living table tennis players include Jan-Ove Waldner, Jörgen Persson, and Mikael Appelgren. The most famous deceased table tennis players include Kjell Johansson.

Living Table Tennis Players

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Deceased Table Tennis Players

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