BY KATIE ARNOLD, AUSTIN KELLEY, and GRETCHEN REYNOLDS                                                  Published: August 3, 2008

There will be 10,708 athletes competing in 302 events in Beijing. Presuming you’re not one of the few admirable souls trying to keep up with it all, here are 10 competitions you won’t want to miss.

TABLE TENNIS

THE FACTS

First things first: Ping-Pong is what you play in the rec room, with a paddle in one hand and a beer in the other. Ping pang qiu is a revered game in China, and as such will be a marquee event at the Games. “Table tennis is the baseball of China, only a hundred times as popular,” says Ashu Jain, a former American collegiate champion and member of the USA Table Tennis board of directors. “It’s a game of chess, with the speed and agility of boxing.” (Can you feel the exclamation point?) A table-tennis ball, when hit by an elite player, can easily travel 80 miles per hour and make 100 rotations per second. That gives the opponent at the other end of the nine-foot table roughly half a second to anticipate, react to and counter a shot. So wipe off that smirk and pay attention.

RULES OF THE GAME

As paddles evolved from the standard-issue, dimpled-rubber models of the ’60s into those with sticky, high-friction surfaces, points rarely lasted more than a few shots and competitive table tennis, believe it or not, suffered a drop in popularity. To encourage longer rallies and make the sport more spectator-friendly, the International Table Tennis Federation increased the size of regulation balls by two millimeters in 2000. It also prohibited players from hiding their serves from view with their hands or arms and tweaked the competition format. Games are shorter — the first player to reach 11 points (not 21) with a 2-point lead wins — and the matches are longer (the best of seven, not five). For the Beijing Olympics, the I.T.T.F. has replaced doubles matches with a team competition, but men’s and women’s singles are still the big events.

STRATEGY

It’s all about the spin — backspin, sidespin, corkscrew and topspin — and the best players keep opponents guessing with a different combination of shots every point. Though it’s not uncommon to see players standing as far as 20 feet behind the table, the smartest adhere

to the closer-lower-faster rule: the closer you are to the table, the lower you catch the ball off the bounce and the faster you hit it, the less time you’ll give your rival to respond to your shot.

MEDAL FAVORITES

No surprise: the Chinese. Top singles players are Wang Hao and Ma Lin on the men’s side and Zhang Yining and Guo Yue on the women’s. The former world champion Wang Liqin is an aging star and a big-name draw but has been less dominant this year. Germany’s Timo Boll or South Korea’s Ryu Seung Min might overtake the Chinese to win silver or bronze in the men’s singles. Though American players are considered long shots, keep your eye on the naturalized citizen Gao Jun, who won a silver in women’s doubles in 1992 — albeit for the Chinese team. — KATIE ARNOLD

To read more facts on other Olympic sports and full article, please visit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/sports/playmagazine/803EVENTS-table-t.html?_r=2&scp=3&sq=ping%20pong&st=cse&oref=slogin&oref=slogin