The club was founded in 1973 as The Emmaus Table Tennis Club (ETTC), became the Allentown Table Tennis Club (ATTC) in 1983, and became the Allentown/Lehigh Valley area Table Tennis club (ALVaTTc) in 1989. The club plays twice weekly at the Allentown YMCA/YWCA on six Stiga/Harvard tables and has the best lighting in the U.S. (maybe the world). Attendance varies from 15 to 25 with USATT ratings ranging from 200 to over 2400 (novice thru advanced) and ages from 8 to 80.
The club has run many tournaments in the past including the memorable 1977 Pennsylvania State Closed. Up until 2007, that tournament held the record for the most entrants (137) at any U.S. state tournament. Players still compliment the organizers on the personalized plaques with their picture(s) included. Many notable tournament entrants and/or club visitors include the late Sam Balamoun, Bill Sharpe and Karl Szakacs. Also Dr. Jiing Wang (USATT Exec VP), Eric Boggan, George Braithwaite, Mike Bush, Rich DeWitt, Eric Eisley, Vladimir Iodkovskiy, Lim Ming Chui, Wally Green, Hamid Hayatghiab, Mike Leshinsky, Steve Lowry, Parvis Mojaverian, Raghu Nadmichettu, Joe Scheno, Sol Shiff (former USATT president), Randy and Ricky Seemiller, Stanley Smolanowicz, Christoph Teille, Marius Weschler and John Wetzler. More recently, our club was honored to have Poland's Marek Luczaj and two players from Germany, Anton Feld and Sportsfest XI Top Gun Champion Nicolas Emmerling included in our weekly play nights.
Our club currently runs two USATT sanctioned tournaments a year, both are Two-Player 'Team' events including two 'Top Gun' singles events (A and B division): in January, the 'Holiday Classic' event (25 team limit), and in July the Lehigh Valley 'SportsFest' event (25 team limit) that includes a 12 class 'Ping-Pong' event for 'local' NON-USATT members. Sportsfest is an annual three-day sports extravaganza held city wide that draws over 12,000 participants in over forty sports including basketball, boxing, swimming, volleyball, wrestling, etc. Admission is free to the over 150,000 spectators. For more information see www.sportsfest.org under Table Tennis.
The Allentown Lehigh Valley area Table Tennis Club proudly promotes both standing disabled and wheelchair play at club and tournament levels.
Profile of the PresidentMember of the USA Paralympic team, Noga is USA ranked # 1 Paralympic female and World ranked # 8 in Class five (which solidified her participation in the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, China). Noga recently won two Silver medals at the 2007 Para-Pan-American Games in Brazil and most recently with partner Pamela Fontaine, won a Bronze medal in the 2007 U.S. Open Paralympics Team event. Also in 2007, she captured three Gold and three Silver medals in Argentina. At the 2006 U.S. Open Paralympics, Noga placed first in Womens Singles and second in Womens Teams. In 2003, she teamed with Jennifer Johnson to win a Silver medal at the U.S. Open Paralympics championships. Noga was MVP of SportsFest V with five Gold medals and voted MVP of the 2001 PA Keystone State Games.
Take a look at Noga in action by clicking here.
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