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Hiroji Satoh
Personal information
Full name	SATOH Hiroji
Nationality	Japan
Born	(1925-02-03)February 3, 1925
Died	June 4, 2000(2000-06-04) (aged 75)
Medal record Men's table tennis Representing  Japan World Championships 1952 Bombay Singles 1952 Bombay Team Asian Championships 1953 Tokyo Doubles 1952 Singapore Singles 1952 Singapore Mixed Doubles 1952 Singapore Team

Hiroji Satoh (佐藤 博治, Satō Hiroji, 3 February 1925 – 4 June 2000) was an international table tennis player from Japan.

Table tennis career

From 1952 to 1953 he won two medals in the singles and team events in the World Table Tennis Championships and four medals in the Asian Table Tennis Championships. Hiroji was the first person to use a sponge on his racket, a common feature of all modern table tennis rackets. Although, at the time it may have seemed as though this technological advancement gave him an unfair advantage, it has truly brought table tennis into the modern age and as the Olympic sport it would become.

He won bronze medal in the team event at the 1952 World Table Tennis Championships and a gold medal in the men's singles at the 1952 World Table Tennis Championships.

See also

• List of table tennis players
• List of World Table Tennis Championships medalists

References

1. "SATOH Hiroji (JPN)". ITTF. Archived from the original on 2017-08-18. Retrieved 2017-04-14.
2. Montague, Trevor (2004). A-Z of Sport, pages 699-700. The Bath Press. ISBN 0-316-72645-1.
3. Matthews/Morrison, Peter/Ian (1987). The Guinness Encyclopaedia of Sports Records and Results, pages 309-312. Guinness Superlatives. ISBN 0-85112-492-5.
4. "Table Tennis World Championship medal winners". Sports123.

External links

• Hiroji Satoh and the first sponge rubber 1952 on YouTube
• Spongers Seldom Chisel on Sports Illustrated

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• Japanese male table tennis players
• People from Aomori (city)
• 1925 births
• 2000 deaths
• 20th-century Japanese sportsmen
• Japanese table tennis biography stubs