WHEN Kerri Tepper was just four, she was already being propped up on a table in the back room of her parents’ house at Murtoa.
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Little did anyone know that 17 years later she would be representing her country when the sport was played at the Olympics for the first time.
Tepper was the second of Margaret and Merv’s four children
“Dad built a room just for table tennis and it’s always been known as the ‘new room’,” she said. “Even now when I come home 40 years later its still the ‘new room’.”
A passion for the sport was developed within all four of the Tepper children as they followed their parents around, playing tennis and table tennis.
“I think it all snowballed from there,” she said.
“I started my career in Horsham’s Maydale Pavillion really.”
While Tepper initially played basketball and tennis and was also involved in calisthenics, she said “parental steering” guided her towards developing her table tennis game.
“Getting all four kids to go in one direction was probably a smart move by Mum and Dad,” she said.
“It’s hard to be in four places at once – especially when you need travel so far from Murtoa.”
At the age of nine she travelled to Melbourne for the first time to compete in state titles. She competed there because her brother Glenn was competing at the underage level as well.
“My brother was six years older than me so I followed him down,” she said.
“I became the Victorian under-10 champion at that stage. I don’t find myself competitive against others but I’ve always loved challenging myself.”
He also worked for the International Table Tennis Foundation for 19 years up until September 2017.
“He was very close to going to the Olympics as well but when we played he would always beat me,” Tepper said.
After winning that title she returned to the Wimmera with a new dream – to make the Olympics.
“When I was ten I remember talking to someone from the Mail-Times and they asked me what I wanted to do in table tennis when I grew up, because I’d just become the state under-10 champion,” she said.
“I told them I wanted to go to the Olympics and they had to tell me it wasn’t at the Olympics. I knew, but I still had that dream.”
Regular trips to Melbourne were a requirement in order for Tepper to continue improving her game and testing herself.
“Dad was our coach and Mum was a big influence as well, but in terms of getting to next level there were a lot of influences in Melbourne,” she said.
“We would travel to Melbourne and it was a big, wide world where people were training hard all the time to learn different techniques.”
When she was 17 she had the opportunity to travel to Japan to train.
“I learnt what true discipline and true training meant on that trip,” she said. “That was probably my first big training influence.
“I played a professional season in Sweden and that environment, where we trained all day, was something different all together.”
In 1988 at the age of 21 she was selected to represent Australia at the Seoul Summer Olympics. It was the first time the sport had been included at the games.
“That was very special,” she said.
“Being part of the opening ceremony was an amazing experience. It was always a dream but never had I thought I’d actually get selected so I was pretty rapt.”
She said she had a mixed experience in Seoul.
“Because it was very low profile in Australia it was kind of overwhelming,” she said.
“I was a little starstruck by all the other athletes because in those days we all travelled together.
“I walked in the opening ceremony behind Debbie Flintoff-King, who was tipped to win gold, so I joked to friends that I was front page news – but it was only because I was taller than her and behind her in every shot.”
Tepper got a second Olympic chance at Barcelona four years later and she said was much calmer.
“I’d been playing for longer and I’d been a part of the Victorian Institute of Sport which meant I had gotten to know a lot of the athletes from different sports,” she said.
“I knew what what was going on a little bit more and felt much more part of it. It was a fantastic experience.”
She said while going to the Olympics was the one of the best experiences of her career, she was most proud of her Commonwealth Championship medals.
“I won one silver and three bronze in Commonwealth Championships,” she said.
“I’d say those were probably my highest accolades.”
During the course of her career she travelled the world and trained with coaches who would always make her work hard.
“I had Russian coaches, Polish coaches, Chinese coaches – so all of them were all into very structured learning,” she said.
“I’ve always loved training hard, seeing how good I could be and the tactics of table tennis. I like trying to work out my opponents and how I could beat them while improving my own game.”
She said the seeing experiencing the sport where it had a higher profile changed her perspective.
“Here people still think I’m taking the mickey when I say I’m an Olympic table tennis player because they don’t even realise it’s in the Olympics,” she said.
“In a way it was frustrating that the sport isn’t as highly recognised, but in another way it’s cool because I get to live a normal life but in somewhere like China there might be 20,000 people screaming your name, cheering like mad or mobbing you for autographs.”
After her playing career ended Tepper was a director on the Victorian Institute of Sport board for six years and spent 16 years on the board of the Victorian Olympic Council.
“I was vice-president on there for 12 of those years,” she said. “That was awesome to represent table tennis in a wider Victorian sporting platform and I used that to try and increase the profile that way. I loved that opportunity to give back.”
Closer to home the Kerri Tepper table tennis tournament has been played in Horsham for the past 23 years.
It provides an opportunity for special needs players within the Horsham Table Tennis Association to compete against each other in the very same place where Tepper’s career started.
“When I get to come back for that tournament I see the absolute delight in everyone involved,” she said.
“There are little things like getting a sporting pin or having a chat which some of us might take for granted but it can be rally powerful to provide that opportunity.
“Sport is so powerful at whatever level you compete in and I think it’s a really ace thing to be involved in.”
