Sport

Ping does it. One second later pong. A sneaker squeaks on the hall floor. Its carrier stretches and stretches, reaches the small, white ball with the bat in his hand, plays it back with pressure. Ping! Otto einbecker has placed his shot so precisely on the edge of the ping pong table that his opponent can no longer reach it. Winning points!

More than two million times this scene has happened in one way or another. Otto einbecker, 75, has been a passionate table tennis player since 1980. The 1.88 meter tall man is the best advertisement for his sport, which has kept him fit for decades. "The beauty of table tennis," says einbecker with a friendly grin, "is that age hardly matters.". Even as a pensioner, he says, it’s no problem to achieve great success at the plate.

Table tennis, according to the lexicon, is tennis in miniature. A ball made of celluloid with a diameter of four centimeters is played back and forth on a plate. The plate is divided into two halves with a net. As in "rough" tennis, the goal is to outplay the opponent so that he can no longer reach the ball.

With this, india’s top sports organization brushed off the IOC, which had banned the election and previously declared it null and void.

The only candidate was lalit bhanot, who was jailed for eleven months on corruption charges in connection with the 2010 commonwealth games in new delhi. He is currently out on bail. In the absence of other contenders, bhanot’s choice was considered safe. There was no official declaration of an election result at first. At the same time, acting president vijay kumar malhotra stressed that the IOA was not seeking a dispute with the IOC. "We will approach the IOC first to explain the situation and work towards a resolution of this matter," he said.

Malhotra justified the vote by saying that legal requirements had to be followed. The supreme court in new delhi had ordered the IOA to cancel the elections, which had originally been scheduled for the 25th of december. November, in accordance with government statutes. "We cannot violate the law of the land," said malhotra, expressing optimism: "we are hopeful that this suspension will be lifted soon." The IOC executive had excluded the IOA on tuesday in lausanne with immediate effect because of massive interference of politics in the sport.

The 32-year-old jamaican was able to start from the beginning in a test match of the australian first division team central coast mariners in sydney on friday.

"It’s going to be a rough game," bolt said. The star believes the test against macarthur south west united could be "decisive" in deciding how to proceed with his desired football career. The sprint world record holder is optimistic: "i can say that i have improved."

Bolt has played two test matches for the first division club from australia’s east coast so far. But the eight-time olympic sprint champion has never been on the pitch for longer than half a game. "This time he will play longer because his fitness has improved," announced trainer mike mulvey. "My coach has confidence in me. He sees that i’m getting ahead and sees the work i’m putting into fubball," said bolt, who has also been in training with bundesliga table-toppers borussia dortmund.

In view of the three injured regulars johannes voigtmann, karsten tadda and captain robin benzing, however, the coach did not want to name a tendency directly after the supercup yet.

"Normally, as a national team, you"re much, much further ahead at this point," fleming said after the clear defeat to serbia in hamburg. "Since we have many question marks with jo, karsten, robin, we have to wait and see how fit they can be."

A decision will only be made once the final diagnosis has been made – however, fleming has indicated that he does not want to take any injured players to tel aviv for the first round against ukraine. "It"s important that we come into the tournament well as a team – that means we are all fit."