Spring Break
Olympic Trials Come To Drexel
I admit it: Table tennis is a sport worth watching
Shawn Gauby
Issue date: 1/11/08 Section: Sports
The participants even have the mannerisms of gamers pwning their opponents in a Halo match. After winning points, each player seems to explode with emotion screaming noises like, "Geyo!," "Shu!" and "Tout!" It is like they are not even allowed to exclaim a simple yes.
"Sometimes, I don't even know what I'm saying," Tahl Leibovitz said. He was the other winner in the qualifier round. "I try to motivate myself because sometimes, I have a lot of physical bumps so I just try to pump myself up."
Leibovitz is a member of the Paralympics team, and he is already on his way to Beijing to represent the United States in table tennis. There are not many sports out there where one person can be on the Paralympic squad and make the Olympic team.
Serves are nothing like a normal person would expect. These athletes often hold their paddles parallel to the table so the opposition has no way of predicting which side of the paddle is going to be used let alone how the ball will be spun.
"In the end, I decided to change my spin. Instead of moving my racket toward the right end, I moved it toward the left a little bit," Leibovitz said. "I was just trying to open the first ball to get the first spin in."
Just to add to the bizarreness of the whole event, every official was a dinosaur. It is like they are the old guard of table tennis, and they refuse to give the younglings a chance to screw up the referee work. However, there were some problems with the chair umpires over the course of the day.
"I was starting to get angry a little bit because the umpires are a little bit old and they couldn't see," Leibovitz said. "We need to have an age cutoff for the umpires, like 75 should be the cutoff."
The action is fast-paced, and the passion is real. It may not be a sport that I would want to watch on a regular basis, but it is definitely worth checking out this weekend. Someone might smack a souvenir table tennis ball into the stands that you can use for beer-pong tonight.
"Sometimes, I don't even know what I'm saying," Tahl Leibovitz said. He was the other winner in the qualifier round. "I try to motivate myself because sometimes, I have a lot of physical bumps so I just try to pump myself up."
Leibovitz is a member of the Paralympics team, and he is already on his way to Beijing to represent the United States in table tennis. There are not many sports out there where one person can be on the Paralympic squad and make the Olympic team.
Serves are nothing like a normal person would expect. These athletes often hold their paddles parallel to the table so the opposition has no way of predicting which side of the paddle is going to be used let alone how the ball will be spun.
"In the end, I decided to change my spin. Instead of moving my racket toward the right end, I moved it toward the left a little bit," Leibovitz said. "I was just trying to open the first ball to get the first spin in."
Just to add to the bizarreness of the whole event, every official was a dinosaur. It is like they are the old guard of table tennis, and they refuse to give the younglings a chance to screw up the referee work. However, there were some problems with the chair umpires over the course of the day.
"I was starting to get angry a little bit because the umpires are a little bit old and they couldn't see," Leibovitz said. "We need to have an age cutoff for the umpires, like 75 should be the cutoff."
The action is fast-paced, and the passion is real. It may not be a sport that I would want to watch on a regular basis, but it is definitely worth checking out this weekend. Someone might smack a souvenir table tennis ball into the stands that you can use for beer-pong tonight.
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