(Continued from last issue)
Premier Chou En-lai worked the public relations opportunity beautifully, receiving the Americans at a banquet in the Great Hall of the People on April 14. "You have opened a new chapter in the relations of the American and Chinese people," he told the unlikely diplomats. "I am confident that this beginning again of our friendship will certainly meet with majority support of our two peoples." He also extended an invitation for more American journalists to visit China, provided they do not "all come at one time." That same day, the U.S. announced plans to remove a 20-year embargo on trade with China. A Chinese table tennis team reciprocated by visiting the United States.
Ping-Pong was "an apt metaphor for the relations between Washington and Peking" noted a Time reporter, as each nation signaled, in turn, its openness to change. Despite the public warming trend, Nixon and Kissinger decided to keep their back-channel negotiations with China to themselves. It was not until July 15, after Kissinger’s secret mission to Beijing, that Nixon announced that he, too, would make the journey the following year, as the first American president to visit China.Wang Liqin winning a forehand drive against Jorg Rosskopf.
Table tennis is one of the most popular sports in the world in terms of player numbers, as well as being one of the newest of the major sports. (Ping Pang Qiu) is the official name for the sport in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. (Takkyu) is the official name for the sport in Japan. (Tak-ku) is the name for the sport in Korea.
Table tennis is a sport where two players hit a ball back and forth to each other, with a racket on a table, in a manner similar to tennis. The rules are slightly different, but the concept is essentially the same. Table tennis is an Olympic sport. "Ping-pong" is the recreational version of the same sport. Spin, speed and strategy play an important part in competitive table tennis matches. The speed of the ball can vary from slow spinny serves to fast smashes that travel as fast as 110km/h.
The playing surface is a 9 ft × 5 ft × 30 in high (2.7 m × 1.5 m × .762m) hard rectangular table with the surface usually colored green, dark blue, or black. A 6 inch (15.2 cm) tall net divides the table in half (much like a tennis court) and is strung to extend 6 inches (15.2 cm) beyond the table on each side.
The paddles, also known as bats or rackets, are usually about 10 inch long, with a hitting surface that is approximately 6 in × 6 in (15.8 cm × 15.8 cm), although the rules specify no limitations in size or shape. The paddle is covered with pimpled rubber on one or both sides. Modern table tennis paddles are usually covered with rubber, and may have the pimples pointing outwards or inwards, and a thin layer of sponge between the plywood and the rubber.
Spin plays a large part in the modern game of table tennis, and the composition of the rubber and the combination of sponge and rubber is designed to maximize the amount of spin and speed a player can impart to the ball. Other technological improvements include the use of carbon or other synthetic layers as part of the blade to increase the sweet spot or the stiffness of the blade. The ball used in table tennis is a 40 mm diameter ball, made of celluloid, completely hollow and lightweight. A three star rating on a ball usually implies a top quality ball, in bounce and roundness.
Play is fast and demands possibly the quickest reactions of any sport. A skilled player can impart spin to the ball which makes its bounce difficult to predict or return with confidence. Spin combined with speed makes table tennis an exciting sport to play as well as to watch. The difference between Olympic level play and the average home recreational player is tremendous. Often a proper foundation of table tennis skills is required to understand how competitive players can do what seems impossible to the untrained eye.
The winner is the first to score 11 points, with each player alternating serves every two points. At 10-10 (or deuce) the players alternate with every serve. The winner is the first person to gain a clear two points advantage over his opponent. The 11 point game is an International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) change which occurred in 2001. The 21 point game is still widely played at recreational level. All games played at national level and at international tournaments (ITTF) are played to 11 points in either a best of five games (preliminaries) or best of seven games format (championship matches).
POSTCRIPT:
Eighteen-year-old Sarah Geronimo has been tapped to sing the Philippine national anthem during the Manny Pacquiao-Erik Morales "Grand Finale" on November 18 in Las Vegas, Nevada one of the three remaining major sports events before the year ends. The two other gigantic sports events worth the full media attention are the 2006 World Pool 9-ball Championship on November 4-12 and the 15th Asian Games in Doha, Qatar on December 5-15.
Apache leader Geronimo (1829-1909) was of Mexican descent but he certainly was not related to the young Pinay diva who is expected to perform better than the mediocre Jen Bautista, daughter of Games and Amusement Board commissioner Angel Bautista, who goofed during the first Pacquiao-Morales fight in January this year./MP mailto:madyaas_pen@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment