Dorin Giurgiuca (December 8, 1944,

Mihalț Mihalț (; ) is a commune located in Alba County, Transylvania, Romania. It has a population of 3,096 as of 2021, and is composed of four villages: Cistei (''Oláhcsesztve''), Mihalț, Obreja (''Obrázsa''), and Zărieș (''Zerjes''). The commun ...

Alba County Alba County () is a county (județ) of Romania located in the historic region of Transylvania. Its capital is Alba Iulia, a city with a population of 63,536. Name "Alba", meaning "white" in Latin and Romanian, is derived from the name of the ...

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

- June 4, 2013) was a Romanian international

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

player and coach.

Table tennis career

Moving at a very young age with his family to Dej, he started playing table tennis when he was 14. After he was discovered by Farkas Paneth, he joined CSM Cluj, where he stayed during all his active career, and with which he would win eleven national championships and five

European Club Cup of Champions The European Club Cup of Champions, often known as the European Cup or ECCC, was a table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table ...

. At the European Youth Championship in Bled, Yugoslavia, in 1962, he won a gold medal. In 1964, after winning the singles competition of the German, Austrian, and English Open tournaments, he was ranked second in Europe by the

European Table Tennis Union The European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) is the governing body of the sport of table tennis in Europe, and is the only authority recognised for this purpose by the International Table Tennis Federation. The ETTU deals with all matters relating to t ...

. A lefty and a master of the

topspin In ball sports, topspin or overspin is a property of a ball that rotates forwards as it is moving. Topspin on a ball propelled through the air imparts a downward force that causes the ball to drop, due to its interaction with the air (Magnus ef ...

, he became Romanian singles champion in 1967 and 1970. A graduate of the Sports Academy in Cluj, after he retired from active play he became a coach. He died of

cirrhosis Cirrhosis, also known as liver cirrhosis or hepatic cirrhosis, chronic liver failure or chronic hepatic failure and end-stage liver disease, is a chronic condition of the liver in which the normal functioning tissue, or parenchyma, is replaced ...

Achievements

*national champion every year of his career in different competitions (1961-1974) *twice national champion in the singles competition (1967, 1970) *European youth champion (1962) *

Balkan Games The Balkan Athletics Championships or Balkan Games () is a regional athletics competition held between nations from the Balkans and organized by Association of the Balkan Athletics Federations. The first games were held in Athens in 1929, and th ...

champion in the singles, doubles and mixed competitions (1965) *bronze medalist in the mixed competition (with Maria Alexandru,

1967 World Table Tennis Championships The 1967 World Table Tennis Championships were held at the Johanneshovs Isstadion in Stockholm from April 11 to April 21, 1967. During the Cultural Revolution, Chinese sports professionals were denounced as 'Sprouts of Revisionism' and were den ...

*silver medalist at the European Championship, (with Maria Alexandru), France, 1968 *Winner of the

English Open The English Open was a professional golf tournament held in England. First played in 1988, it was an annual event on the European Tour until 2002. After several aborted attempts at reviving the tournament, it returned to the tour schedule in 20 ...

title.

Awards

*Master of Sport, 1962 *Honored Master of Sport, 1994

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Giurgiuca, Dorin 1944 births 2013 deaths Romanian male table tennis players Sportspeople from Alba County Deaths from cirrhosis World Table Tennis Championships medalists 20th-century Romanian sportsmen