Table tennis - The long pimple ban

The proposal by the ITTF to ban certain long pimple rubbers was announced well over a year ago now. The reasoning was that some long pimple rubbers were treated, making the tips of the pimples less grippy then the sides, producing different spin depending on how far you bend the pimples. The rubber properties are supposed to be consistent throughout, so they propose these types of rubbers should be banned.

Trouble is, it very hard to test if a rubber is treated or not. Because most of the treated pimples were designed to have little to no friction on the tips, the ITTF proposed to simply set a minimum friction level for long pimpled rubber, anything below it would be illegal. A device that could measure the friction coefficient was not too hard to design, and could be used at tournament for testing. They admitted that this may result in some non-treated rubber to be banned as well, but this did not seem to bother them.

Since this announcement there has been very little information or discussions by the ITTF, although it's is a very common topic among long pimple players. Players that are currently using frictionless are lost, and can't plan their future rubbers because they fear it might be banned. Similarly manufacturers don't know what criteria to use to design new, or modify their existing long pimples to meet the new criteria. Retailers don't know what to stock, since any banned rubbers will be very hard to sell.

Firstly I question the reasoning behind the actual proposal. Long pimple players are already a minority, frictionless players even smaller, so can it really be in the interest of the players and the sport in general to ban these rubbers? I know there have been a few letters written to the ITTF with objections to the proposed ban. Most of these were ignored because they did not come through the right channels. Some have been discussed in the ITTF forum, but I have not seen a solid reason that makes a real case for me.

The ITTF feels justified by the decision, since the proposal was initiated by players themselves. However I wonder how many long pimple players were part of this proposal by players? Where they even consulted or given an opportunity to defend their position? Since long pimple players are a minority, they only have a small voice. Many inverted players may not care about this decision, or are happy because they struggle playing against this type of rubber. But is this a good enough reason for the ITTF to ban them? It's a right of the players that's being taken away here, and this should not be taken lightly!

Secondly I think it's outrageous that the ITTF proposal was made so long ago, and still no more details have been provided. It's left manufacturers, retailers and most importantly PLAYERS in limbo for a long time!

I have recently heard some rumours that some of the manufacturers have been given some more details about minimum friction level, and a list of rubbers that may be banned. The ban is rumoured to be effective as of July 2008. Assuming this is true, has there been any announcement by the ITTF for the players who they are supposed to represent? I think not!

I can't help but think that the decisions made by the ITTF over the years have been more political than anything, or somehow motivated by money, since many did not seem to benefit the players or the sport at all! I'm sure money had a lot to do with it so if you want to know answers, see who benefits from the decisions follow the money!

Haggisv is a player and coach, who runs several table tennis websites and is an advisor for the online table tennis equipment store One of a Kind Trading. He also runs a table tennis forum and a table tennis review website

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Table tennis - The long pimple ban
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