I scheduled a table-tennis date this evening with an Italian friend of mine. He claims to have routinely cut class in high school to hone his skills at the game -- and, he says, this was a common practice among his peers. At my high school, the kids who cut class a lot were typically doing so to smoke weed or explore life's carnal pleasures, often both. But if table tennis is your thing, you go, Italy.

I don't mean to be disrespectful. I like a rousing table-tennis session as much as the next unathletic schmuck. I like to watch it every four years when the Summer Olympics come around. But table tennis -- OK, I'm going to call it "ping-pong" from here on out because you and I both know that's what it is. It's ping-pong, folks. What more is there to say?

Well, I guess the International Olympic Committee would like to weigh in on the matter. Insecure from puerile teasing like the paragraph above, the IOC posted two "HEROES" profiles of past ping-pong medalists to "pump up" the sport's public image. Here's the jist of Deng Yaping's bio, entitled "The Smallest Giant":

The biggest obstacle in Deng Yaping's Table Tennis career was not her opponents, but her height. ... In 1988, when she was 13 years old, Deng won the national championship, but was refused a spot on the national team because she was too short.

Then the national team changed its mind, and she won a bunch of Olympic medals. Short person (I mean HERO) triumphs at ping-pong. Don't expect Bruckheimer to option this one anytime soon.

Maybe my perspective is too ethnocentric. Seemingly everyone plays here in Japan. Plus, the IOC claims — in a boast that appears to have been vetted by several lawyers — ping-pong "has become the world's largest participation sport." Impressive. Yet over on the IOC "football" page, it says that soccer "is the world's most popular game."

I'll let you sort that one out. The comparison is important, however, because it reminds us that for all of ping-pong's inadequacy of mystique and lack of heroism, it could be worse. It could be soccer.

Congratulations to ping-pong. You are the Underappreciated Sport That I Don't Appreciate of the Day.

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posted by Johnny at 11:03 AM - Permalink

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