A sticky subject at Olympic table tennis

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

BEIJING -- Parents, are your teen-agers spending a lot of time all of a sudden in the garage playing ping pong?

Glad they’re doing something more active than sitting in front of a screen playing video games?

You might want to monitor them, just in case they are emulating their favorite Olympic table tennis players.

There have been drugs and rumors of drugs here. In fact, only four athletes have tested positive for banned performance-enhancing drugs with a fifth pending.

The real scandal here ... glue sniffing.

Jordi Serra, the International Table Tennis Federation’s executive director, told the ‘Around the Rings’ website Thursday that his organization was going to just say no to the glue that players use on their rackets to increase spin and speed. The so-called speed glue has been banned, starting as soon as these Games are finished.

According to ‘Around the Rings,’ ‘Players sometimes change the glue on their racket 10 times a day, and officials fear the fumes could be toxic.’’

-- Randy Harvey