Olympic Table Tennis

Though not too familiar with table tennis, I have enjoyed the matches I have seen taking place at the Olympic Games this year.  The speed and athleticism of the game is astounding, but what I notice most is how good the eyes of the contestants are, They see blurs like we see slow motion. Hitting a table tennis ball is like hitting a baseball, I assume. Players with eye deficiencies like" lazy eye" would not be able to hit it often enough to be competitive.

Anyway, watching that sport played at the Olympics is enlightening. I played  table tennis, what we called ping pong, a few times as a kid since a friend had a ping pong table in his carport. My skill was limited, very limited, so I never had aspirations of playing after that childhood experience.  Who wants to play a sport they are not competitive playing? I never had much success in sports with a moving ball, but then my eyesight depth perception has been impaired since birth. But what about table tennis? When di that sport begin? I decided to check to find out and here is the story.

The sport got its start in England towards the end of the 19th century when, after dinner, some upper middle class Victorians decided to turn their dining room tables into miniature versions of the traditional lawn tennis playing field. Who would have thought a game dominated today by Asian players was invented by the British. Those clever Brits adapted table tennis to what was available in the home. They used a line of books as the net. Rackets were lids from empty cigar boxes, and a little later, parchment paper stretched around a frame. The ball would be either a ball of string, or perhaps more commonly, a champagne cork or rubber ball.

My research uncovered this evolution if the game. "When the game first started it was called by a number of different names. “Whif whaf,” “gossamer,” and “flim flam” were commonly used to describe it. The words, as can be assumed, were derived from the sound that the ball made when hit back and forth on the table. In 1901 though, English manufacturer J. Jaques & Son Ltd registered one of the more popular names, Ping-Pong, as a copyright. He later sold the trademark to the Parker Brothers in the United States. Then in the 1920's the name and the sport were revived in Europe as table tennis."

It evolved further during the 1900's into the ball and table we see today. Today it is a highly developed and technical game of speed and  skill.  Until the 50's Europeans were the best players Americans showed little interest in it beyond a parlor game kids played. In the 1940' the Japanese  took over the game and dominated. later other Asian nations, particularly  China, became the world's best. Most of the medal winners in the Olympics this year are Asian, with China being the dominate country. many of the American and European contestants are of Asian heritage.

I think there is little passion for ping pong here today. It's too bad. Table tennis is an exciting sport to play or view.