Every four years there are certain ‘sports’ you need to sit through while you’re waiting for basketball or track & field to start. Like, for instance, diving or volleyball. Table tennis is definitely one of those games.
When you watch table tennis, you’re reminded it’s literally just thiiiiiis close to ‘beer pong’. Seeing the Chinese play is one thing…it’s like their national passion so, while stupid, we tolerate their dominance because…well, they’re China and who really cares?
But when you see a couple of white dudes from Sweden and Croatia play with the fancy spin serves and all, it reminds of us that one guy in college who was way too good at foosball…you know the dick we’re talking about…he was roommates with your buddy and every time you went over to their apartment, he challenged you to a game of ‘foos’. He could do that stupid spin kick move where he would use the goalie to launch the ball over the table and right into your goal pretty much every time, and you played because you didn’t want to look uncool, and you hated the fact that this douche was better at you than anything even remotely resembling something athletic, but when you lost that means he had to go out with you and you had to buy him beer, but then you’d end up ditching him at the first bar and meeting the chicks at the place you really wanted to go to in the first place…
That’s what Olympic ping pong table tennis reminds us of.
