He is one of Sweden’s greatest ever.
And JO Waldner had a trick to stay focused.
Now he reveals the ritual he followed – before every match he played.
JO Waldner was an extraordinary talent, and no one was surprised when he broke through in the world of ping pong with a bang. He had a god-given sense of the ball and during his years in the absolute fine room of table tennis, he became one of Sweden’s absolute greatest and most popular athletes.
Incomparable career
Waldner was for a long time the face of table tennis and it was he who alone made the sport so immensely popular in Sweden during the 80s and 90s. Today, Waldner can look back on a truly fabulous career that contained the most. The breakthrough came as early as 16 years old, and the enormous successes continued until he was over 40 years old.
Waldner helped break the total Chinese dominance that had existed for a long time in the sport, and in total there were six World Cup golds, eleven European Championship golds, double titles in the World Cup – and also an Olympic gold in Barcelona in 1992. To this day, Waldner’s cult status in China, where he goes by the nickname “The Evergreen Tree”. But it wasn’t just the feel for the ball and the game sense that made Waldner so incredibly good.
Reveals the special ritual
Waldner has always been a bit of a numbers geek and loves to delve into both his own and other people’s results. Today, he can remember most of all his matches and what happened, and how the score was during different parts of them. He was also meticulous when it came to mental and material things. JO Waldner also had a thing for himself before every match – which he always followed to the letter.
It is not uncommon for athletes to have different rituals of their own, such as putting on one shoe first or always walking out on the field last. Waldner also had a specific thing for himself – namely never touching the lines that were on the floor.
– It was good when you started running red carpets in the premises, because then there were no problems. But in old floors, there were always lines, and I didn’t like that. So you had to go across diagonally. That’s what I had, says Waldner in “Sportpodden”.
According to Waldner, tennis superstar Rafael Nadal has the same thing going for him.
– Quite a few have had it, especially with lines. Rafael Nadal always goes that way. But then when we went over to the red carpet, I let go of that ritual.
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