Chandra Madhosingh was a brilliant man. He earned a Ph.D in Cosmology—studying the universe—and regularly worked for NASA. He could have gone anywhere and made a fortune doing any number of things. Yet for decades Chandra taught high school science at Vancouver’s Britannia Secondary. Asked why, he once said, “I’ve been accepted here and this is where I’ll make my contribution.”
And what a contribution it was. In so many ways. Ask anyone in the table tennis community. Over six decades Chandra helped elevate table tennis as a coach, manager, organizer, administrator, official, and volunteer to the point many consider him to be the ‘Father of Table Tennis in BC.’
Born and raised in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago, Chandra first came to BC in 1955 at age 19 to study at UBC. He never left. He met his first love, Donna-Faye, on a Vancouver tennis court in 1959. Their marriage lasted 58 years.
Chandra’s second love was table tennis and it too was lifelong. In 1960, he founded the BC Table Tennis Association and served the organization for the next six decades in various roles including president. That same decade he created the Vancouver & District Table Tennis League. In 1973 he founded both the BC Secondary Schools Table Tennis Championships and BC’s first table tennis training center at Vancouver’s Strathcona Community Centre.
In 1974, Chandra became one of the first Canadians to pass the International Table Tennis Federation’s international umpire examination. By then he was already coaching BC and Canadian junior teams competing internationally, something he did from 1970-87. Highlights included tours to China (1973) and Israel (1974). He is credited with developing many Canadian national team members including Peter Joe, Eddie Lo, and Robert Chin.
For three decades beginning in 1977 Chandra represented Canada at the Commonwealth and World Table Tennis Championships in various capacities. Over the same time period he served the Canadian Table Tennis Association as president, chief umpire, and selection chairman. Later he stood as the North American representative on the International Table Tennis Federation’s Olympic Commission leading up to the sport’s first-ever inclusion at the 1988 Olympics. He also served as a technical official at both the 1992 and 1996 Olympics.
Chandra made his final in-person appearance at the national level at the 2022 Canadian championships in Mississauga, Ontario. He passed away at the age of 86 just a few months later.
Written and researched by Jason Beck, Curator of the BC Sports Hall of Fame.