OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Could you be so kind and give me one example of an incorrectly edited quote?

I always thought I cut out the relevant fragments for my comments.

Sorry, I was talking about speedplay who has on occasions has edited my quotes with some very funny results, not you. I thought brab was as well, but reading back it seems he wasn't

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Another consideration, how beneficial the new proposal can be.

Currently the limit is 3 players per country. If the limit goes to 2, the places of the strong Chinese, Japanese, German etc. players will be taken by weaker ones, who otherwise would have no chance to come through qualification.

Which means, the average level of the Olympic TT will be lower, then now.

Thus the proposal even contradicts this provision of the Olympic Charter:

At the last Olympics the player with the lowest ranking was № 849. I don't think the № 849 may be considered "adequately prepared for high level international competition". It may go well below this level.

I have never done that and would certainly never stoop to such low levels in any serious conversation.

I leave the doctoring of documents to Tony Blair and... Speedplay.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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Certainly not in Sweden, Russia, USA, Canada and the rest of the cream of icehockey. But it could very well raise the level of popularity in South Africa if they - as you suggest - were allowed to send a team. They would surely get royally whooped in every game, but they were there, participated and was supported by a number of their countrymen who for the the first time was exposed to icehockey. First by seeing the ridiculous low level of their own country, then they were amazed by the sheer beauty of the Russian and Czech play and impressed by the physicality of the Canadian game. Perhaps they even grew to love icehockey during that fictional tournament.

The point being, that multiply the above with ten new nations and you may register a small global growth in popularity. Repeat the event and you will see further growth, etc, etc. Growth in popularity is what every sport is looking to achieve.

As for the level of competition, the cream always rises to the top. You will get the best games later in the tournament, but you will get them.

In the meantime, you can get some excellent entertainment out of an amateur - Eddie the Eagle.
Or you can get beautiful underdog stories about some foolish clowns who don't understand anything about the sport, but achieve amazing results in the end - the Jamaican bobsleigh team.

Those two examples is what every sport would give anything to have. The publicity generated around these fan favourites served bobsleigh and ski jumping far better than any duel between the top three teams in the world.

And it is all in the spirit of the Olympics, which is still what the proposed changes will affect.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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You are still distorting my words. This time you take out two sentences out of the three and interpret them. There is a third sentence and it is important not to ignore that to get the overall picture of what I say.

It is much the same method you use when presenting your other arguments here. You present parameters A and B, but ignore the context and the greater picture - parameters C and D - to make your argument work. It does not work like that (except in economics, which is a different story.)

As for your understanding of English, I see no reason to hide behind a statement of it being limited. If you are able to read and interpret regulatory paragraphs written by ITTF lawyers - the ones you urge us all to read critically a few posts above - then presumably you should be able to understand my English with less effort.

Your opinion of "very bad" is very much not in agreement with my view of "very little will change".

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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Alright, I gave one example without any preference or ranking as is indicated by "for example"at the end of the sentence:

This example was meant to illustrate that we may not have to guess what lies ahead, but we could perhaps learn from what has happened to other sports after the change. I am sure there are sports that can give us a pointer as to what has changed for them. Your example swimming, much like taekwondo, is probably not the best of sports to compare to either.

In any case, I just proposed a possibility of how to get a clearer picture of what the future may actually look like, as opposed to basing the discussion on speculation only. I believe anything is better than pure speculation when we discuss subjects as serious as how these changes will affect our sport.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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This is absolutely correct.

This is what I don't understand. Why do you think it could be about you?

OK, my analysis was based on the original question whether these changes would increase the popularity of the sport. Anyhow, you expanded it to fairness for participators. In my view, your view of fairness is irrelevant to the particular participants we are talking about here. I will explain why below.

I know exactly how that made me feel as this was my situation when I was fencing. I was between one and three spots outside the national team for a few years, but never managed to break into the team. But my immediate thought was not "Gee, I wish they would have one more spot open so I would get into the team." or "Gee, I wish I 'd been born in Malawi where I would have ruled fencing, etc."

Those thoughts never ever crossed my mind. But as a serious athlete I rather reacted along the lines of "I need to try harder, work harder and go further", "I need to be better, to be the best". In my particular case this attitude made no difference at all in the longer run as I had reached the end of what my talents allowed in fencing.

Anyhow, what I am trying to say is that the motivational factors are quite different for professional athletes than for us serious hobby players.

A pro plays to the specifics of a certain competition and they are not particularly high on the mental checklist. The opponents are however at the top of the list, as the only real goal of participating in pro sports is to beat them all, no matter who they are and where they come from. Nothing else matters so the goal of the competition will remain the same.

In other words, nothing fundamental has changed. I believe it will be the same with Olympic table tennis and this rules change.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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Will so many top players really be missing from the Olympics after the rules change?

Many certainly seems to argue for it, but let's see. To be called a top player, I assume we can agree to mean anyone in the Top100. Outside the Top100 can't really be counted as anything top, IMHO.

So, how many would we loose if the Olympics were held today and players selected by the current Top100 world ranking?

We would loose seven players. These are the ones:

Ma Lin, China
Patrick Baum, Germany
Seiya Kishikawa, Japan
Ryu Seung Min, South Korea
Tang Peng, Hong Kong
Chiang Hung-Chieh, Taiwan
Roko Tosic, Croatia

Personally I only see 2.5 top players in there. And only 1.5 capable of adding real quality to the competition. The rest - no offense to the players - but I don't see any of them setting the stage alight.

Those seven are what we loose in actual fact through this rule.
That is the actual number.
They represent the actual loss in quality.
That is the actual devaluation of the medals.

A lot less will change in reality than we think. Therefore, I do not believe this rules change will lead to anything bad for table tennis.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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Could you, please, explain your calculation? Thanks.

Yes, that is right. I have also excluded Austria and Sweden, the only two remaining teams with 3 players in the Top100 as both Jörgen Persson and Werner Schlager have retired from the major international tournaments, leaving both countries with only two in the Top100.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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Sorry, but I am still not comfortable with that.

1. Not "the ITTF", but some people within the ITTF. The proposition has not been officially made and it has not been voted on yet.

2. We don't know, who thinks what within the IOC. What we know is that there is a provision in the Olympic Charter, which says not more than 3 participants per country in individual events. Which clearly means, that 3 participants per country, as we have in TT now, is OK. Those are the rules, opinions of some IOC people don't matter, the rules matter.

2. We also know about this provision of the Olympic Charter: "The NOCs shall send to the Olympic Games only those competitors adequately prepared for high level international competition.". Banning 7 TOP100-Players from the Olympic and replacing them with (relatively) low level players is a violation of this provision imho. Actually in 2008 there were 19 NOCs with 3 players (men). So we would have had 19 lower level players.

All this apart from the apparent motivation of the ITTF President to make it through a rule change impossible for China to win 3 medals. Which imho violates the ITTF rule about discrimination.

If you would choose to comment on my full paragraph which concerns individual players and their attitude instead of pulling an excerpt from a sentence inside the paragraph, perhaps then you would see that it concerns a completely different matter than what you apply it to.

Anyhow, wanting a gold and getting it is not the same thing, as I am sure everybody understands.
In any given tournament you can have 15-20 or perhaps even 40 guys with the intention of winning the gold. The simple fact is, only one will. Therefore the attitude of wanting to win gold is not the only factor that matters. It is not that simple. Training, skill sets and how your talent has been developed matters too, and the issue is that since China leads the way in just about every tt related field, the rest of the world will have too settle for the leftovers.

Since this is what seems to worry the IOC and the ITTF, they do what sports bodies are formed to do: they regulate to ensure the best future possible. That is their intention. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong, and sometimes... it just does not matter either way.

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NITTAKU SEPTEAR cpen | FH: 729 802, 1.5, black | RPB: CORNILLEAU PILOT POWER, 2.0, red
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