Radu Negulescu (born 22 March 1941, in Bistrița) is a former Romanian table tennis player who won 23 national and 17 international titles. He started playing table tennis at the age of nine. In his youth, he also played

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

and

handball Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the g ...

at the national level, and basketball at the local level. In 1956, he placed second in the youth national championship. After graduating from high school, he moved to Cluj and joined the table tennis division of Progresul, where he was coached by

Farkas Paneth Farkas Paneth (23 March 1917, Cluj, Austro-Hungary – 23 June 2009, Cluj, Romania) was a Jewish-Romanian table tennis player and coach who played for Romania. He started playing on a tailoring table using firewood instead of a net. As a player ...

. In 1958 and 1959, he won the individual and doubles youth national championships. Between 1959 and 1968, he won six individual national championships, one mixed, five doubles, and 10 team national championships. In 1958, he became the youth European champion in the individual, doubles and mixed competitions. Between 1961 and 1967, he won five times the

European Club Cup of Champions The European Club Cup of Champions, often known as the European Cup or ECCC, was a table tennis competition for European club teams. It was organized by the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU) annually for men's and women's teams. It was first held i ...

with his team, CSM Cluj (alongside Adalbert Rethi,

Dorin Giurgiuca Dorin Giurgiuca (December 8, 1944, Mihalț, Alba County, Romania - June 4, 2013) was a Romanian international table tennis player and coach. Table tennis career Moving at a very young age with his family to Dej, he started playing table tennis ...

and others). In the Balkan Games, he won three gold medals (two in the doubles and one in the mixed competitions). He participated in 5 editions of the Table Tennis World Championships. A

gynecologist Gynaecology or gynecology (see spelling differences) is the area of medicine that involves the treatment of women's diseases, especially those of the reproductive organs. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, forming the combined area ...

and a doctorate holder, he

defected In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

with his wife to West Germany in 1981, leaving his two children behind. After nine months the children were allowed by the Romanian communist authorities to join their parents in Germany. In Germany he worked first as a table tennis coach before he found a job as a doctor. He changed his name to Johann R. Wolff, and practiced medicine in

Pulheim Pulheim (; Ripuarian language, Ripuarian: ''Pullem'') is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Since the 1920s, a large substation of the ''Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG'' (RWE) is located at Pulheim. I ...

. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he was a visiting professor at his alma mater, the "Iuliu Hatieganu" School of Medicine and Pharmacy, Cluj.

Awards

*Master of Sports (1960) *Honored Master of Sports (1999)

Book

Radu Negulescu, “Viitorul vine din trecut”, 2010

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Negulescu, Radu 1941 births Romanian male table tennis players category:Sportspeople from Bistrița Romanian expatriate sportspeople in West Germany Romanian defectors Living people