by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

A reward for Samuel Von Einem, it was also a reward for Alois Rosario whose commitment to table tennis never diminishes. There is one underlying reason: the whole family, well known to Glenn Tepper, ITTF Deputy Chief Executive Officer and former member of the Australian National Team, is steeped in sport, in particular the sport of table tennis.

The table tennis community has been recently saddened to hear that his mother Prisca (Nunes) Rosario passed away on Tuesday 4th April. Prisca was 85 years old, and has made an enormous contribution to table tennis, first as a champion player in India then later as a player, coach and official in Australia.

“In 1960, Prisca Rosario was the Indian Women’s Singles Champion and played for India at the World Championships. She represented Victoria and Australia for many decades including successfully participating at National and World Veteran Championships until very recently.” Glenn Tepper

In 1975 Prisca was manager and coach for the Australian Women’s Table Tennis Team in the Commonwealth Championships in Melbourne, the World Championships in Calcutta, and in 1980, the Asian Championships in India. She also became a member of the Australian Veteran Committee and the Honorary Secretary of the Swaythling Club Australia.

Prisca Rosario (right) with Fujie Eguchi (left), who first met at the World Championships in 1956 meet again as veterans (Photo courtesy of the Rosario family).

“Eric Rosario became a guru for strength training for older postmenopausal women to build bone density and had a large following in Australia.” Glenn Tepper

Eric Rosario, Alois’ father, who sadly died last year on Saturday 11th June, was an Indian weightlifting champion, his goal like many other sportsmen being to compete in an Olympic Games. Unfortunately his chance was denied: he was selected for the 1956 in Melbourne but eventually India decided not to send a team. However, Eric continued to make a contribution to weightlifting after the family moved to Australia and became actively involved in table tennis and many other sports, organising strength and conditioning programmes in Australia and Oceania with the support of Prisca.
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Encouraged by his parents, Alois, who has two older sisters, Viola and Louise, the latter representing her state at junior level, progressed to represent Australia, before turning his attention to coaching.

He became Australian National Coach and, along with Glenn Tepper, wrote “Tops Table Tennis”, the publication which forms the first 180 pages of the ITTF Level One Coaching Manual.

Alois Rosario is currently in Fiji as the coach of the Australian Paralympic team and is a worldwide success in providing coaching and coaching lessons online as co-creator of PingSkills.com .