Rob Atha

Rob Atha is a table football/foosball player from the UK, currently ranked 1st in the world and regularly ranking in the top 5 of the International Table Soccer Federation (ITSF) rankings.[1] As of July 2011 Atha was ranked number #1 in the UK on all of the official ranking BFA ranking lists, a position he has maintained for a number of years.[2]

Overview

Born in 1986, Rob is the son of former British Foosball Association (BFA) Chairman Boris Atha.

He won his first Open Singles title at a UK ranking tournament at the age of 13, at the Earl Haig in Hounslow.[3] This and other early tournament successes led to Rob being dubbed the "Wonderkid".[4]

Also at the age of 13, Rob appeared on British children's TV show Blue Peter to show off his impressive skills and would return to the show some years later.

He became the ITSF Doubles World Champion in 2009 along with fellow UK player Joe Hamilton.[5] Following on from this success, Rob appeared on various British TV shows including Newsround on BBC1 and gained his second badge for appearing on the television show Blue Peter on 21 April 2009. During this appearance a clip was shown of his first appearance, which was made as a result of his initial foos exploits.

Rob has been sponsored by various companies such as energy drink giant Red Bull and Heineken beer who recently published video footage on YouTube of Rob demonstrating various foosball tricks.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.table-soccer.org/rankings/players.php?&numlic=82600007
  2. ↑ http://forum.britfoos.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8979
  3. ↑ http://www.britfoos.com/files/BFANews2.1.pdf
  4. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport3/worldcup2002/hi/other_news/newsid_2009000/2009158.stm
  5. ↑ http://www.table-soccer.org/newsletter/200902_newsletter.html

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, April 28, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.