Ilija Lupulesku

Ilija Lupulesku (Serbian Cyrillic: Илија Лупулеску; Romanian: Ilia Lupulescu; born October 30, 1967) is a former Yugoslavian and later American table tennis player who competed at the 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2002 and competed for the United States from 2004 to 2006. Ilija Lupulesku played his first game of table tennis at age nine in his small hometown of Uzdin, Yugoslavia. After seeing other children playing at his local school, he picked up a paddle and began what would become his life's ambition. Despite his love and talent for soccer, Lupulesku, under the watchful eye of first coach Jon Bosika, committed himself to training and by age 14 was the top player on the Yugoslavian Junior National Table Tennis Team. Over the next 12 years, he would rise through the ranks of the world's best players and become one of the largest sport celebrities in his native Yugoslavia.