Today, I would want to introduce a person, and a dear friend, Manuel Sierra Puzo. Manuel is a very special individual who introduced many of us (and still does) into the beautiful sport of table tennis. The title of this post ‘many lives in one’ is totally justified, when someone listens to Manuel, and his frenetic activity, you get the impression that we are in a front of a person who got the luck to live more than a single life (and still does).
Giving some context to understand the background of Manuel will not be easy, as you will very quickly understand … Manuel was former table tennis player, Spanish national vice champion, trainer, national coach, manager in the table tennis Spanish federation and even Eurosport’s commentator. On top of it, he developed an intense professional life, outside table tennis, and got a big family. He was also the founder of one the most known table tennis shops in Spain: Thule Sport and is still bounded to the club he helped to create: Las Rozas TM. Last but not least, he was awarded on 31st May 2010 with the Sport Merit’s Bronze Medal, one of the highest distinctions in the landscape of the Spanish National Sport.
The very early years …
Having said that, I think we can now be sure that we are talking about someone that, although does not feel special or different, is clearly one among thousands. But, let’s start from the beginning … Manuel was born in Huesca (Aragón, Spain). For those not familiar with the Spanish culture, “los maños” (people born there), are very well known for their reasoned stubbornness and impetus. This way to approach things will be a constant through his life, making him well equipped to go for his objectives. This character, probably, also helped Manuel in his early days to overcome an illness that was close to kill him. As a result, Manuel lost his listening in the left ear although he discovered it some years later. From that point onward, Manuel always followed a kind of motto that we might translate as something like ‘taking things on the fly and proceed’. Despite of showing a passion for the architecture, personal circumstances make him stay in Zaragoza – where there was no Architecture’s school -. He then decided to follow one of the ‘family traditions’ and started the Laws career that he never changed even after the later move of the whole family to Madrid.
A walk through Manuelˋs life is an opportunity to discover a way to approach our sport and witness its evolution since its early days. Let’s then make this walk together.
Stumbling upon table tennis …
Manuel started practicing the king of sports, on this side of the world, football, ‘spiced’ with a bit of tennis and ‘pelota mano’ as well. Once in the University of Zaragoza, he practiced javelin and 400 meters running. Manuel always claims that the experience with the javelin was later very useful in his personal learning process in table tennis.
Having landed in a big new city as Madrid, empty in the middle of the summer, Manuel spent a few months exploring it, basically, every week a new place was ready to get unveiled. After a while, he got a pretty good idea of what Madrid was and started running little bit out of ideas on what to do beyond his regular life in the University. Then, someone advised him to make a visit to ‘los Luises’, a Jesuit’s association at Zorrilla’s street where, at the last floor, he met a bunch of very good table tennis players as, for instance, Juan Castillo – the best player in Madrid at the time – and later national champion. He started practicing there and joined the team where he played 2 years or so. The team was known as ‘Imbopipo’ (Independiente Bohemio Ping Pong Club). Obviously, Manuel helped to set the name and contributed to spread the word on table tennis with a publication where he signed as the Spanish ‘Johnny Leach’ 😉 We are around 1954.
Imbopipo grew to reach the table tennis national divisions, with Manuel as part of the team, after a relatively quick and successful path in the different categories in Madrid. During this period Manuel met his worst rival at the time, his Nemesis: Emilio M. Buitrago.
A competition path as player … that built up a trainer
Thanks to having landed at the right place with the right teammates, Manuel evolved quickly as player and developed a deep love for the sport. A love that has continuously growth since then.
Imbopipo’s club was too successful to get aligned with the original intention of the religious entity behind, more interested on having a social club where Christians met rather than a high performing sports club.
After Imbopipo, Manuel, with Juan Hereza, built a new club with some workers of Agroman. Later, Manuel was called by Juan Castillo to join the Real Madrid table tennis section in 1958.
In 1962, he went to Barcelona and played again with Juan Castillo but also with Jose Maria Pales until 1964. Jose Maria Pales was one of the most prominent players, at the time, and a great imitator who introduced new strokes and techniques from the top international players that he met in the international competitions. For instance, Jose Maria Pales was the first player in Spain to use the forehand and backhand top spin strokes that others copied from him to make it become, later, common place in the country.
Overall, Manuel, as said, reached in a few years the top national level and managed to get his performance’s peak, as player, when he became the vice national champion in 1965, once back again in Madrid.
In parallel, in Madrid in 1964, Manuel created another club for youngsters, close to a Church in his place, called ‘Cordimariana‘. He then started training players such as Domingo Seco, Maldonado, Orbea and Inmaculada Torres that got later some success at the national level as well.
Later, in the 1965-1966 season, he joined the Atletico Madrid as trainer in a new table tennis section that was created, as part of a master plan to challenge its rival, Real Madrid. His ‘pupils’ of ‘Cordimariana’ joined the club. Sadly, in 1968, the section was dismantled as the project, for all the new sports sections, showed unsustainable for the club. Next, below, table tennis is represented by one of Manuel’s players in Atletico, the one in the red shirt on the left side of the picture.
A career in the high level …
Manuel participated at some international competitions during his best period as player. At the time, Spain was not a country that get the necessary level to compete with the average level in Europe and, for sure, too far away from the top squads in the world.
When he came back from the 1967 Sweden World Table Tennis Championships, Manuel concluded that a change was necessary to propel the next Spanish generation into the international landscape. The main issue was that, at the time, there was no structured training for table tennis coaches in Spain.
From these international experiences, some little anecdotes emerged. Just to quote one of them, Manuel mentioned how a very young player (around 13 years old), in the Swedish squad kept his attention, his name was Stellan Bengtsson. All the rest is pure table tennis history, Bengtsson became the first Swedish table tennis world champion and a legend in his country where the gold generation, that came later (Waldner, Persson, Appelgreen, Lindh …), owns him to have opened the path of Sweden at the very top worldwide level of the sport. Manuel recalls how I. Ogimura, the Japanese coach, at this time, undertook the reorganization of the Swedish federation, and in this way sow the seeds of this legendary squad that interrupted the China’s predominance in our sport during the late 80’s and early 90’s period.
At this time, Manuel formally started his preparation as table tennis trainer. First by following the first courses proposed by the Spanish federation and later one of the first courses organized, at European level, by Tibor Harangozo in Germany. Tibor Harangozo was a former top international yugoslavian player that, as we will see next, became the father of the current merchandising model of table tennis equipment that we all know today.
In the next years, Manolo became Technical Manager of the table tennis Spanish federation. He got clear in his mind that a revolution was necessary in the national squad to incorporate new young blood capable to grow internationally in the years to come. This was not well received for some of the most experienced players, used to have little rotation in the participation at International competitions. Nevertheless, Manolo got the support from 2 key figures as Jorge Pales and Juan Castilla that help to make the transition to the new generation of top players. At this period, people like Sureda, Feliu, Maldonado … among others, helped to renew the Spanish national squad.
The next milestone in this renewal process of the national squad will be the quest for a foreign high reputed trainer. Not an easy task, as few high-level trainers found attractive to handle the Spanish national squad at the time. Finally, Manuel managed to sign Stipek as National Coach and later Technical Director in the summer of 1975, replacing Manolo. Manolo already married and with children, and with less support at the national level, decided to transition to a new phase once accomplished his main objective, the renewal process of the Spanish squad.
This was not the end of his relationship with the federation and the sport. Manuel kept stable links with table tennis as Director of the National School of trainers since 1984 to 1988, club’s trainer and, occasionally player, and through the Thule Sport shop as public relations. From his position as Director of the National School of trainers, he collaborated with top level trainers such as Peter Gardos (in charge of the national squad around 1985 until 1988). Peter is still today active and one of the best trainers in Europe, still helping the young generations to meet the excellence in our sport.
Few years later, Spain was awarded with the preparation of the Olympic Games of 1992 in Barcelona. The federation then looked at Manuel as the right profile to help in the preparation of the event for the table tennis discipline. Manuel accepted the challenge and support the federation in the process. Manuel got a key role in signing Dusan Osmanadig as national trainer to prepare this event (from 1988 to 1991). It is important to remember that Barcelona’92 was the first time that table tennis was participating as an official discipline, as in Seul’88 table tennis competition was present as an exhibition sport. This way the win of the ‘ever green man’ Jan Owe Waldner at the Estacio del Nord Sports Hall became part of the history of our sport for ever.
The technological evolution & Thule Sport
Manuel decided to build up a table tennis shop, around 1970, in Madrid with the help of his wife‘s family. He decided to name it in an original way (it won‘t be the first time he does this type of tricks): Thule Sport. The term Thule comes from the chemical element Thulium (in German) and its symbol is TM (in Spanish Table Tennis is translated as ‘Tenis de Mesa’). In the shop, Manuel played a technical role, where he was in charge of relations with suppliers, and assistance to clients and clubs.
It is interesting to understand the reasons that pushed Manuel to perform this move. But to get to this point we might, first, do a little walk through the evolution of the table tennis market since the early days until getting its modern shape (mainly the period since 1950 to the 70‘s).
At the early days, table tennis rackets were built only in one piece with rubbers directly stuck to the wood. Many brands got just a very few models that were the result of the combination of 2 or 3 blades and 1 or 2 rubbers that might have, sometimes, same colours (and not only red or black but also green or blue). When the bats got the rubbers fully consumed, the player just replaced the bat by a new one. Needless to say that Manuel went through the first evolution of materials in our sport: first short pips rubbers, the appearance of the sandwich rubbers, the introduction of long pips rubbers by Chinese players, the first anti-spin rubber (with Tony Hold who managed to get an European title from nowhere), illegal rackets (as the one of the Japanese with an exaggerated foam‘s thickness) and finally with the introduction of the Tibhar Individual concept and the fresh glue – today totally forbidden – to increase the speed and spin of the rubbers on the blade for a few hours.
Little explanation here, the Tibhar Individual concept proposed, for the first time, to sell rubbers and blades separately. This concept, that looked as revolutionary at that time, is today the only way we conceive to own a table tennis racket as serious table tennis players 😉 This way of selling rackets, in addition to be commercially attractive for brands, supported the rise of new playing styles in our sport.
The absence of an easy access to high quality rackets, blades and rubbers, at the time in Spain, and the Tibhar Individual concept (among others) motivated Manuel to found Thule Sport. The relation with Mr Tibhar Harangozo, the founder of the Tibhar‘s company, and his continuous push to make Manuel setup a shop in Spain also helped in the decision process. In addition to Tibhar, Manuel quickly established a relation with the brand still dominating the table tennis market today, Butterfly, becoming also the first national official distributor at the time.
A motto for the high level …
It is very difficult to even make a summary of the life of a person and, especially, in the case of people with such level of activity and intensity in their life as Manuel. In this sense, and to yield in the reader a final taste on the type of person Manuel is, let’s introduce his main motto for the high-level sport but, somehow, for life as well.
When talking to Manuel over all these years, I have got the opportunity to reflect and learn a lot about the specifics of table tennis. The reflections made by Manuel helped many players to better understand what are the main qualities that any sportsman needs to acquire to reach the elite of the sport. In this sense, Manuel repeats again and again the following explanation to players joining the High-Level National Centres for the first time (in Spain these Centres depend on the ‘Consejo Superior de Deportes’ or CSD, the Sports Governance body in Spain),
“the path to the top level involves 3 cyclic steps (CSD)”
1) Compromiso (C) or Engagement to get my objectives.
2) Sufrimiento (S) or Suffering that is necessary to get out of the comfort zone to learn and progress while accepting the loss over the path.
3) Disfrute (D) or Joy that is only achieved when evolution materializes and maturity on the new lessons acquired is achieved, just to restart the cycle again.
The above ideas summarize quite well what someone who wants to follow this path needs to keep in mind over the process. It is also a nice epilogue for this interview to Manuel, as it represents well the way of thinking of a person with high values and many lives in one 😉
Wise Table Tennis 
Many Thanks Pedro! El