As funny and interesting as the sport is, I cannot get one thought out of my mind. And that’s family olympic ping pong in the basement on a cold winter night in 1976. I get dusty basement visions in my eyes when I watch it in the olympics! It’s a funny memory that I equate with the olympics. There are a lot of things I like about watching the olympics - I guess I like watching competitions.
No matter where they are being held I like seeing the greatest atheletes competing for the best in the world. Even if it is for Ping Pong in this instance
How about you? What’s your favorite event and why?
YES! Oh thank God I’m not alone! I love ping pong, and I suggested to my wife recently that we get a second table so we can have tournaments in the house. She didn’t seem too amused. I will be glued to the TV whenever that’s on, especially now that with our new TV, I’ll be able to watch ping pong in HD!
I’m all about the ping pong and baseball, although I’m sure I’ll end up watching other events, particularly on the track & field side. I’m not a huge fan of the water events or gymnastics.
Sorry…no can do. The sound alone will drive me to insanity.
I’m waiting for swimming, diving and gymnastics. Them’s my favorites. And I hope the Sweetest Evah Little Pixie Gymnast Girl from the US takes all the gold. She’s fucking adorable!!!
I think Olympic badminton is interesting to watch. It’s not like in your backyard. It’s played at hyperspeed. It’s riveting. Unfortunately, we probably won’t see much, if any of it because it’s not a medal sport for Americans. All we’re going to get is the four hour sob story about the pole vaulter who overcame acne and the heart warming saga of the perky little gymnast who has a teddy bear and wants world peace.
I’ve seen some high-level table tennis on TV before, and it’s amazing. The ball is moving almost too fast for me to follow it, and the players are hitting it back, onto the table, with spin.
But that also makes it hard to watch. When I watch sports, I like to see what decisions the players are making, what they’re trying to do, whether they’re successful or not. Competitive table tennis happens too fast for me to appreciate anything but the speed. I watch it in the same way that a cat watches a butterfly; and that wears off after a while.
Which also goes against one of my favorite things about the Olympics. I love obscure sports, new (to me) sports, those things I only ever hear about once every four years. I’d love to know more about fencing, equestrian, sailing, team handball, water polo, sailing, badminton, rowing, kayaking, table tennis, hammer throw, steeplechase, etc. Even during the Olympics, most of those are barely covered. There isn’t the knowlege to describe the competition well. And for some, the winning moves still can’t be captured on camera.
I think that there’s a US broadcaster that is streaming all events to US ip addresses? NBC - is that who paid a lot of cash - I dunno? BBC certainly are, but there’s definitely a US broadcaster punting it all online. I’m sure actually that it is NBC.
I was really disappointed, as well, at the lack of any Olympic athlete protest. It’s quite understandable; this is the biggest moment of their athletic careers, and who wants to ruin that? But if Turkmenistan or someone had suddenly unfurled Free Xinjiang banners, I could have died happy at the lost Chinese face and the collective seizure of the Politboro…
Badminton and table tennis are the two sports that are completely different games when played at a high level. By that I mean in a picnic soccer game somone might make a great pass or hit a rocket into the top corner of the net, but nobody is ever going to pull off in the basement what are routine shots in Olympic caliber table tennis.
An average 20 year old has at least a chance of putting a penalty shot by an Olympic goalkeeper or returning a serve from Serena Williams, but is unlikely to even score a point against a table tennis or badminton Olympian.
It’s probably going to get coverage here, since one of the Japanese team (Ai Fukuhara) has been a B-level celebrity ever since she was a 3-year-old table tennis prodigy.
I never actually watched her play until the 2004 Olympics, where I immediately started hating her for her habit of shouting after Every. Freaking. Point. (Shouting after you win a rally is one thing. Shouting after your opponent flubs a serve is just obnoxious) Hopefully her manners have improved since then.
They’re also really playing up the fact that she speaks Chinese and putting her forward as the face of Japan for that reason.
Is that really considered rude? I don’t know much about ping pong, but have noticed that the Chinese badminton players seem to do it after every point.
Among other things, today’s top Ping Pong players put incredible spin on the ball.
I was always a PP buff, and one day I went to some club in Waterbury CT because I heard they had a nice program. Well,I played against a moderately good club player and his spin baffled me. He’d hit it the same way three times running and my returns went wide right, into the net, and long, all night long. Curiously enough, I enjoyed it. It was exhilarating playing against someone so far above me.
Think what it must be like to go up against the Olympic PP-ers!!
BTW…
Notice that one face of the PP paddle is Red (and dimpled) and the other is Black (and smooth). You hit with the dimpled side to apply spin, and the smooth side for power - generally. When you hit with the simple side, the sound is quieter, muffled, compared to the much louder SCHNOCK from the smooth side.
Years ago, when both sides were one-color some (maybe many) players would stamp their foot or shout or both, when racket struck ball, to mask the paddle-ball sound. You couldn’t tell which side the hitter was using and it made the game a helluva lot harder.
I bought such a paddle at the Waterbury facility mentioned earlier. $70.
I will be glued to the TV whenever that’s on, especially now that with our new TV, I’ll be able to watch ping pong in HD!