To date, eleven players have taken part in all six PingPongParkinson World Championships held so far, but only eight of them have registered for the 7th World Championships in Hanover. As such, there will be some changes at the top of the all-time participants’ rankings. This gives the 18 players with five appearances to date the chance to move up three places, although this does not apply to six of them, who are not taking part this time.
These are the eight regulars now aiming for their seventh appearance: Margie Alley, Nenad Bach, Hamid Ezzat-Ahmadi and Ilya Rozenblat (all USA), Erik Astrand and Maria Wäneskog (both Sweden), Thorsten Boomhuis and Harry Wissler (both Germany).
Barring any unforeseen circumstances, the following twelve players will be making their sixth World Championship appearance in Hanover, thereby moving up to joint ninth place in the all-time appearances table: Maik Gühmann, Norbert Hase and Silke Kind (all from Germany), Daniela Beurer, Thomas Schlup and Carlo Zanatta (all from Switzerland), Lin Zhang Freund and Jörgen Sjöstedt (both Sweden), as well as Hermine Hofner (Austria), Liz Houghton (England), Ewa Kerntopf (Poland) and Elisabeth Ildal (Denmark). Jetzt: Nearly all missed only the first World Championships in 2019 in Pleasantville (USA).
Those who were there but will now be absent for the first time are Damasio Caeiro (Portugal), Martin Zagar (Croatia) and Jesper Jerslund (Denmark), who will consequently drop from (joint) first place to ninth place. Jesper Jerslund has a happy reason for being unable to attend this time: In the spring, thanks to improved diagnostic methods, he learnt that he has not been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for the past ten years, as doctors had always told him, but from essential tremor – a condition that can resemble Parkinson’s but is something entirely different. He had already registered for Hanover, but then withdrew his entry with mixed feelings.