Jörgen Persson


Jörgen Persson is a Swedish former table tennis player.

Career

In two memorable World Table Tennis Championships finals he faced fellow Swede Jan-Ove Waldner in 1989 and 1991, losing the former and winning the latter. He also won four World Championship titles in Team.
Persson represented Sweden in every Olympic Games from when table tennis was introduced into the Olympic program in 1988 until 2012. After the 2012 Olympics he officially retired. Along with Croatian Zoran Primorac and Belgian Jean-Michel Saive, he was the first table tennis player to have competed at seven Olympic Games. His game is based on a powerful backhand stroke and a regular forehand.
His best Olympic result is a fourth place at the 2000 Summer Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics. At the latter, he was the best non-Chinese in the entire event.

Post-retirement

Persson is the national table tennis team coach for Sweden, which was the winning team at the 2023 European Championships in Malmö. It was the first time in a whole 21 years that Sweden stood as winners in a team event in table tennis. The players in the Swedish team consisted of Truls Möregårdh, Mattias Falck, Anton Källberg, Kristian Karlsson, and Jon Persson.
On 20 September 2023, Persson announced that he would make a comeback as a player in Kosta SK in the coming season.