From April 15 to 25, 1965, the 28th World Table Tennis Championship, known as SPENT, was held in Ljubljana. It was the first sports event in the newly built Tivoli Sports Hall, located near our museum.
The championship was attended by 46 national teams, with nearly 500 athletes competing. Chinese players dominated the medal tally, winning 5 out of 7 titles. The most successful participants were Lin Huiqing with two gold medals in the women’s events and Zhuang Zedong with three gold medals in the men’s events.
The championship ended successfully for the Yugoslav team, which secured fourth place in the team competition. In the decisive battle for third place, they lost to North Korea with a score of 2:5. Most of the team matches were played by Vojislav Marković, Edvard Večko, and Istvan Korpa, with Dragutin Šurbek and Željko Hrbud also part of the team.
Dušan Oražem, the long-time head of the Melamin Kočevje plant, played an important role at SPENT. He was first involved in the event’s organizing committee and then served as one of the three chief referees during the championship.
