Australian Delow Dorothy, a 100-year-old paddler, takes part in the 15th World Veterans Table Tennis Championships in Hohhot, China June 7, 2010.
100-year-old player highlight table tennis veterans worlds.
Dorothy De Low Life Detail:
HOHHOT - Delow Dorothy, a 100-year-old paddler, came out the oldest player to take part in the 15th World Veterans Table Tennis Championships slated here on June 7-12.
Dorothy caught people's attention on Monday as the 100-year-old, the oldest among over 2000 athletes in the veterans worlds, performed quite well, adroitly answering the balls with tricky angles
A Guinness World Record holder as the oldest athlete, Dorothy was also the oldest volunteer at the Sydney Olympic Games in 2004.Living in Australia's Hurstville, Dorothy fell in love with table tennis at the age of 50 and joined a local club for practice.
Players here in her group were all over the age of 84. Dorothy won a game and lost the other in the first day qualification on Monday.
"I think it's wonderful, making a lot of friends," said Dorothy.
She has won everyone's respect and love, and was the biggest star in Monday's competitions. Many fans asked her to take group pictures and for signatures.
"I feel like a film star!" She said.
Dorothy is a member of an above-70-year-old women's table tennis team which frequently participates in competitions back in her home country.
Dorothy caught people's attention on June 7 as the 100-year-old, the oldest among over 2000 athletes in the veterans worlds, performed quite well, adroitly answering the balls with tricky angles.
Australian Dorothy De Low Interviews:
One way or t’other so many of us have enjoyed interesting journeys and hopefully this segment of our website can attract those who will either volunteer profile interviews or tell us in their own words something of their journey to share with us…
With such forthcoming and co-operation this segment can eventually allow all of us a more enlightening understanding of those varied pathways that have led many to concentrate their more senior years in our chosen sport.
From a published historian and profiler in Busselton, Western Australia,
Neil Coy at coywrite@gmail.com
Phone (08) 9754 7567
Dorothy De Low is the Grand Old Lady of table tennis in Australia. She is widely known all over the world, wherever she has played the game. A former World Veteran Table Tennis Champion Dot is great company and full of fun. She has been widowed for quite some time, but lives her table tennis life to the full. Hailing from Sydney and currently 98 years of age…she turned 90 at the Vancouver Worlds in 2000.
I first saw Dot at the Melbourne Worlds (1994), where she won the Over 80s Consolation Singles. Since then she has attended and played in every Worlds: (Lillehammer (’96), Manchester (’98), Vancouver (’00), Lucerne (’02), Yokohama (’04), Bremen (’06) and Rio de Janeiro (’08). I’m reliably informed that she won her World over 80s title in Baltimore in 1992. Dot goes to New Zealand every year at Easter to play at the nationals as well: she is a most experienced globetrotter.
A wonderful sense of humour has our Dot. Though a petite lady Dot insists on carrying her own luggage and strides out in front. Geoff Nesbitt tells me that she still drives herself in her own car in Sydney. “She will ‘burn you off’ at the lights!”
He said.In Rio this year she was carried up the steep steps of one of the notorious “favellas”, by Paul Pinkewich, wheelchair and all. “Casey”, she exclaimed “all this here is a real eye-opener!”
One year Dot arrived at the Airport on her way to New Zealand and her passport had expired. Well, at her age you can’t blame her for that oversight. So when she was coming with us to Canada I corresponded with her son Peter, who also lives in Sydney, to make sure all her documents were in order. We really got to know her in Vancouver! My wife Joan and I struck up a warm friendship with Dot in Vancouver and took her under our wing, so to speak.
Although fiercely independent, we felt that Dot needed regular company and escort at her age. It seemed everyone at the time more or less took her for granted and let her plod along by herself. Not if my Joan could help it!
During the Championships, on our lay-day, we travelled up the mountain overlooking Vancouver and the Bay. There was this movie theatre up there near the snow and we all went in to see ‘The history of Vancouver and British Columbia’. When the movie finished the lights went on and we all filed out. Missing was our Dorothy…on going back in I saw her sitting there in the top row fast asleep. She had seen nothing of the documentary but had enjoyed a lovely nap.
She came along on the Inner Passage Alaska Cruise and shared a cabin with Betty Bird and Alice Waye. You wouldn’t believe it, these two wanted Dot to crawl into the top bunk! Joan quickly put a stop to this nonsense and told the other two not to be so selfish and give Dotty the bottom bunk. At one of our ports of call, I think it was in Siska, Dot wanted me to take her photograph in front of this huge Indian totem pole, some 30 feet high. ”Do you want all of the totem pole in the picture Dot?” I asked. “Of course!” she retorted. “In that case I will have to lie on my back right in front of you; otherwise I’ll be so far away we won’t recognise you.” “What are you waiting for?’ she said immediately, winking at me.
Every evening Dot had a formal dinner with us, together with Bruno and Georgette Zimmaro, Horst Frohlich and Joan Munn. Dot sang out the first evening: “Has anyone got a man for me?! A good man is hard to come by.” During one of the dinner conversations this topic of relationships came up, I remarked that I had my hands full with just the one partner:”Just imagine King Solomon with his 1000 concubines, how did he have time with only 365 days per year?” Quick as a wink Dotty replied: “Ah, but there are 24 hours in every day!”
Dot De Low would have to be one of the most photographed ladies in the world of table tennis. Everywhere we go she features in the local press and is getting more famous with age. In Manchester during the opening ceremony, the most lavish of all I have attended, the compere picked out our Dot and held her up as an example for all to emulate. Then he asked this lady sitting in a wheelchair next her in the front row, how old she was. “One hundred!” she said. With that he produced a table tennis bat from somewhere, walked to this centenarian and put the bat in her hand. “Do you play?” he asked and she said: “No, I don’t any longer.”
The compere then addressed the audience: “No matter, this lady will be the World’s over 100 champion!” It brought the house down.
Another time after Dotty had defeated her opponent in New Zealand and there was tumultuous applause, she gleefully put both her arms in her side and flapped them up and down like a bird. The applause went on and on…
Dot tells the story of not long ago, when early one morning she sneaked out of her front door in a busy Sydney suburban street to collect the paper and mail. The front door slammed shut behind her and Dot was left standing in her nightie in full view of all walking past. Not to be perturbed our very own Dot De Low cheerfully waved at everyone whilst walking half a block to reach the back door.
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