Word: glue
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Case in point: I was walking outside of the table tennis venue at Peking University this week when I saw this sign - "Gluing Tent." Actually, I smelled it before I saw it - that sweetly sharp, pungent odor of Elmer's gone wild. With fond memories of those grade school glue highs, I popped in, hoping for a much-needed week two lift, and maybe some bonding moments with a few fellow sniffers, and saw a long table, a dozen or so chairs and one very happy volunteer. (Too zoned out, no doubt, to kick me out and tell...
This can't be, I thought - a glue sniffing tent? Really? At the Olympics? Weird, but, you know, pretty progressive of the International Olympic Committee. "Jia you" Jacques Rogge...
...rubber. But not being a ping pong - sorry, table tennis - aficionado, I asked Bob Fox, team leader for USA Table Tennis, for some help, and found out how wrong I was. "They don't worry about the rubber falling off the paddle," he explained. Fox said the pros apply glue to the paddles and use its tackiness to their advantage. "The effect is one of increasing the speed and spin when you contact the ball...
...knew glue could do that? It seems that unlike us basement ping pong champions, table tennis athletes can actually use glue to snap the ball across the table in some pretty astounding ways. Think of slathering your palms with jelly or something equally slippery and then putting your hands together - "that's the springy effect that glue on glue provides," said Fox. Since the 1950s, when table tennis players stopped using hard-backed paddles that consisted of rubber on wood, athletes have been using paddles, or bats, that include a layer of sponge between the paddle and the rubber - anywhere...
...though, is to time the gluing just right. There is a magic moment just before the glue dries when it's hard enough to stick, but still tacky enough to give. That's when players at the Games want to hit the tables. If they don't, it's pong-demonium. "One of our players melted down [in a previous competition] because the match in front of her was delayed," said Fox, "so she thought her glue was losing its effect." Table tennis can be so stressful...