by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

A computer programmer by profession, the owner of CompuMAX Ltd, Arturo Ricardo Vasquez, 57 years old, always known as “Tux”, commenced his table tennis career as a player in 1977.

He became the leading player in Belize before, in 2007 initiating the formation of the Belize Table Tennis Association; the organisation was accepted officially as a member of the International Table Tennis Federation at the Annual General Meeting held in 2008 in Guangzhou.

Additionally, the holder of several positions within Belize, Tux Vasquez is a member of the Belize National Olympic Committee.

Notably he is fluent in both English and Spanish. Belize is the one country in Central America where English is the official language. Formerly known as British Honduras, in1964 the colony became self-governing, being renamed Belize in June 1973 and granted full independence in September 1981

The Central American Table Tennis Confederation is often known as CONCATEME, an acronym of the Spanish, Confederación Centroamericana de Tenis de Mesa.

In addition to Belize the organisation comprises the national associations of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua and Panama.