Ian Kent

Ian Kent has competed at four Parapan American Games earning seven medals. He helped Canada to the silver in the team event and added a bronze in singles at the 2015 Games in Toronto.  At the 2011 Games, he won gold in singles and silver in doubles, and in 2007 it was silver in both the singles and team events.

In 2019 at Lima, he added a bronze in the men’s Class 8 singles. A former able-bodied table tennis national team coach, Kent has been playing the sport virtually his entire life.

Since Toronto, he has competed at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and won the U.S. Open men’s singles title that same year overcoming a 0-2 deficit in games in the final. In 2019 at the Copa Christina Hoffman tournament in Cancun, Mexico he notched gold in the team event and silver in singles.

In 1999, at the age of 38, Kent was diagnosed with dystonia, a movement disorder in which sustained muscle contractions cause twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures. He was bed-ridden for nearly two years before the cause was diagnosed. He returned to table tennis in 2001 and in 2003, he entered the world of Paralympic table tennis.

As of October 2023, he is ranked 62nd in the world in singles and 41st in doubles while in the Americas rankings he is ninth in singles and fourth in doubles.