No ordinary grandmother, Ito has been in the game for nearly 60 years. (Jiji)

A woman has risen to new heights in Japanese table tennis with a most remarkable record. She is Mie Prefecture resident Kazuko Ito, and at the December 2002 Japan Table Tennis Championship held at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, she notched up her one hundredth career win in the women's singles competition at the age of 67 (she turned 68 on January 17, 2003). Never before has anybody won as many victories in a Japanese national table tennis tournament. Having started out on this journey with her first victory in 1954, her milestone was almost a half-century in the making. And it was made all the sweeter by the participation of a grandson of hers in the same tournament. Truly she is a champion grandmother.

Prevailing over a High School Student
Ito's hundredth win came in her first match of the competition. Her opponent was Ayaka Sejima, 17, a high school student 50 years her junior. Ito took the first two sets, dropped the third, and then easily finished Sejima off in the fourth, 11-2. She was defeated in her second match, so her record stopped there, but no other competitor is about to overtake her. The next best record, held by Kiyoshi Saito in the men's division, is 89 victories.

"I still don't believe it," Ito said when it was over, holding back tears of delight. "I guess I finally did it. I really wanted to get my hundredth win here, since my grandson is also competing."

It was a long road. Ito got on the winning track with three victories in the 1954 tournament, and in 1978 she reached the 90-win mark. Then, however, her pace fell off. It took her 24 more years to compile the last 10 victories, and five years elapsed between her ninety-eighth win in 1996 and her ninety-ninth in 2001. "To be honest, I thought ninety-nine was it for me," she admits. But only one year later she climbed to the top with victory number 100, and she did so handily.

Grandson Follows in Champion's Footsteps
Ito began playing table tennis at the age of 10. In 1957, at the age of 22, she became Japan's singles champion, and she repeated the feat in 1960. She has represented Japan in world championship competition, helping the women's team to three consecutive world victories (1959, 1961, and 1963). She has also won titles in both women's and mixed doubles competition. Today she is active as a coach for a corporate team and for Osaka Shoin Women's University. The International Olympic Committee has taken note of her achievements, presenting her with an award for her contribution to women's sports in April 2002.

The grandson following in her footsteps is Kazumasa Ikeda, 14, a middle school student whose family lives in Shizuoka Prefecture. He took part in the men's singles competition last December, making his debut. And with him on the scene, Ito now will be bowing out, since she reports she has no plans for another appearance. "From now on, I'll be rooting for Kazumasa," she says. But she is not yet ready to lay her paddle down, as she plans to remain active in senior events.