Werner Schlager teve sua figura estampada em um selo, em reconhecimento a conquista do campeonato mundial individual 2003 Bercy, Paris. O selo é da Österreichische Post AG.
Schlager é o primeiro atleta vivo a ser estampado em um selo na Áustria!
Werner Schlager, Table Tennis World Champion 2003
Issue date:
Value in EUR:
25.9.2003
0.55
Special issue stamp
Circulation: 700.000
Design: Renate Gruber
Photogravure
For the first time, the world table tennis champion is an Austrian.
It is true that Richard Bergmann won gold in the men’s singles in 1937, but in that competition the Asian nations were conspicuous by their absence.
Werner Schlager is also the first non-Asian to win gold since the Swede Jan-Ove Waldner won the World Championships in 1997.
Werner Schlager has been the Austrian table tennis champion nine times, a record in the Austrian Table Tennis Federation’s history. He had already won bronze in the 1999 World Championships and the 2002 European Championships. In the European Top 12 competition, he won in 2000 and reached the semi-finals in 2003. In the Olympic Games in Sidney, he reached the quarter finals in both the singles and the doubles. In the mixed doubles, Schlager was European champion in 2003 together with Krisztina Toth from Hungary. In total, Werner Schlager has won nine World Championship and European Championship medals.
Werner Schlager was born in Wiener Neustadt on September 28, 1972, and today lives in Sollenau. A volunteer soldier, he is 1.76 m tall, weighing in at 70 kg and his hobbies are computers and music.
The commemorative stamp is appearing on the occasion of the Lower Austrian’s 31st birthday. Schlager is the first living sportsman to appear on an Austrian stamp.