Real athletes play...pingpong?

Published: Friday, May 31, 1996

Friday, May 31, 1996

I'm tired of getting laughed at when I tell people that I play ping pong competitively. Contrary to popular belief, ping pong is a sport, and I am an athlete.

People don't realize the pain and the agony that I go through every off-season. I run five-miles a day, four times a week, in order to build up my stamina. It's not easy playing an entire pingpong match, having to run up and down the side of a table. Half of my wins are a product of out-lasting my opponent. After running, I lift weights, giving me the leg strength to stand upright for half-an-hour and the arm strength to hit a near-weightless ball with a four-ounce paddle. After every match, I spend hours in the training room, with an ice pack on every one of my worn down muscles. I'm the human freezer.

Last season, I suffered a major hand injury by cutting myself on the corner of the table, after I tried to stab at a forehand crosscourt shot by my opponent. I had to bandage my cut, gut it out, and play through my injury, like a true warrior.

The pain got so bad that I just told the doctor, "shoot me up!" And he did. 18 doses of Vicadin and I was back out in the rec room.

My competitiveness led to an addiction to Vicadin. But I just couldn't resist. The pressure from my peers would have been just too great. Unequivocally, pingpong players are the toughest species around.

So don't tell me that I'm not an athlete. pingpong is a medal event at the Summer Olympics. Telling me that pingpong is not a sport is like telling me synchronized swimming is not a sport, that badminton is not a sport, that ballroom dancing is not a sport, that yachting is not a sport, that shooting is not a sport, that modern pentathlon is not a sport, that equestrian events are not sports and that archery is not a sport. If things go right, darts will finally become a medal event, and rightfully so.

I have a hunch as to why we don't get the respect that we deserve. It's jealousy. People see how athletically-gifted we have to be in order to play pingpong competitively. They see the God-given ability that they don't have, so they try to bring us down to their level.

Pingpong players are athletes. There's no way to spin it. And pingpong is a sport, and a damn exciting one at that.