Foster (73), who returned to competitive table tennis with the North East Valley Club this year because he wants to play in the world veterans championships in Auckland next year, was a member of the New Zealand team that competed in the world championships in Peking (now Beijing) in 1961.
''This was the first time that any significant event had been held in China when other countries participated,'' he said yesterday.
Sixty countries competed at the championships, including Great Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. China was in the middle of one of the biggest famines it has ever had.
''We didn't know that at the time,'' Foster said.
''They provided plenty of food for us while the rest of the population was starving.
''Most teams had reporters with them, so it was the first time that the news media had got into China since the communist revolution.''
The Chinese kept open its invitation to the United States because it was not expected to come and did not do so.
Foster played a key role in the 1967 world championships in Stockholm when New Zealand was playing Ireland in the play-off for 25th spot.
The game score was 4-4 and Foster played the deciding game against the third-ranked Irish singles player. He lost the first set but won the second 21-10 and led the Irish player 16-0 in the decisive third set.
''They had lined up the rest of our team outside the court to give the medals before the match had finished,'' Foster recalled.
''All I had to do was walk off the court, stand in line, and get the medal.''
Foster played for New Zealand from 1957 to 1973. His last international was the world championships in Sarajevo.
Foster grew up in a table tennis family. Frank Foster, his father, was one of Otago's top players in the 1940s. Bryan joined the North East Valley club as a 12-year-old in 1951 and played continuously until he retired in 1975.
In the late 1960s, Foster and his brothers, Ron (75) and Ray (68), were ranked in the top 10 in New Zealand.
Foster won six New Zealand titles - singles in 1966 and 1968 and four men's doubles with Alan Tomlinson (Auckland) from 1968 to 1971. He was also a member of the most recent Otago team to win the interprovincial title in 1970 and was runner-up in the national mixed doubles with his wife, Ruth (nee Laing).
Foster is looking forward to next year's world veterans championships.
''It's going to be my one and only chance to play locally,'' he said.
He will play in the over-75 age group with his former doubles partner Tomlinson (80), who has agreed to come down an age-group to play with him.
Foster has kept himself fit over the past 25 years playing golf and tennis and coaching table tennis.
Foster is serious about his comeback and has set up a table in the garage of his home at Woodhaugh.
''I play or practise four or five times a week for over an hour,'' he said. He plays in the A grade competition on a Monday night. Ruth plays in the B grade for Sawyers Bay. Ruth joined the Sawyers Bay club at the age of 12 in 1956 and has never stopped.
''It's social game for me,'' she said.
