Booster legalization proposed

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The VOC content threshold back in late 2008 was 5 ppm.
http://ooakforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=4762

Then it was announced in Jul 2010 and further clarified in Aug 2010 that the target was:
4 ppm from Oct 7, 2009 to Aug 31, 2010;
3 ppm in Sep 1, 2010;
2 ppm in Sep 1, 2011.

Yet, in May 2011, the 2 ppm threshold was revoked after the Chinese TTA proposed for a temporary halt in face of the London Olympics. The threshold has been at 3 ppm ever since.

Proposed by the CHN TT Association
To modify Technical Leaflet T9, Racket Control (9.1):
9.1 Harmful volatile solvents measurement with MiniRAE-Lite®
The ITTF has banned volatile solvents from use on the racket. The limit has been decided by the ITTF Executive Committee as follows:
• from September 2009 to August 2010: maximum reading of 4,0 (4,0 is accepted);
• from September 2010 to August 2011: maximum reading of 3,0 (3,0 is accepted);
• from September 2011 to [strike]August 2012[/strike]: maximum reading of [strike]2,0[/strike] 3,0 (2,0 3,0 is accepted).
Explanation:
Currently the tolerance of VOC is 3 ppm, and the limit will be reduced to 2 ppm in September 2011.
As we know, the London Olympic Games will be held in 2012, and too many changes to racket control regulations will be harmful for the players’ preparation work. If the players pay too much attention to racket control, it will be difficult for them to devote themselves to the competitions.
Therefore, they will not be able to display their best skills. Besides, the current calibration could hardly detect the minor difference between 3ppm to 2 ppm. For this reason, we suggest that the racket control regulations be kept stable during a certain period. It will be better to adjust the regulations every 4 years according to the Olympic Games period, instead of making changes every year. With the stable regulations, the players can concentrate in practicing and the technical level of our sport will be raised.

There you have it. Anything lower than 3 ppm gets you nothing but false positives. After years of messing around, they figured out 2 things. We couldn't detect it and we couldn't tell if the booster has been applied at the factory or not. Yay!!
 
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Boosting to me seems to invalidate the idea that you are allowed to examine your opponents paddle to know what they are playing with. I mean you aren't allowed to touch the surface and clearly even the officials cannot tell if you boosted or not (which is why the rule is unenforceable). Therefore just by looking you cannot tell if they are playing with the Sriver you are familiar with or something that has been boosted to perform like Tenergy. The right to examination becomes meaningless if only one side is boosting.

That means the playing field is only even in the same sense that legalizing doping in cycling would be a level field if everyone did it. Do we really want to encourage everyone to dope? Boosting is just doping for bats. :)

That last part is just meant to be funny.
 
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If this here proposal actually passes (and it might)
Defenders can kiss their collective asses
Goodbye.

Do defenders boost? I guess at the highest level they do, as they play with Tenergies on the forehand and 3rd-balling along with counterlooping is a big part of their game, at least for men.
 
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Examining the opponent's racket was written into the laws in 1983, along with the red/black rubber color rule and no foot-stomp. They were directed at Cai Zhenhua after he literally toyed with the top European players in the late 70s. They complained and lobbied for the rule change. Cai retired right after that. People only started speedgluing around that time.

Given that, one could argue speedgluing defeats the purpose of that rule. You can't tell what glue your opponent used to glue his/her Sriver, since not all glue was created equal. Kim Taek Soo was DQ at the WTTC 1995 after his rare win over Wang Tao, because he made his own glue by mixing 2 types of glue and it was not approved after the only ITTF approved glue law came into effect in 1993.

Same for thickness. The difference b/w 2.0mm and Max is rather small to the naked eyes.
 
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It was unfortunate Sharara described it as racket-doping. Though the VOC part was bad, speedgluing was an equalizer, as some would have put it. One big argument over outlawing after-market booster is that it essentially puts those players from associations with lesser resources at a major disadvantage.
 
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(zero). It was unfortunate Sharara described it as racket-doping.

(bjgmann). Yes, that was unfortunate. How should Sharara have described speed gluing? Enhancing a racket's performance characteristics?

(zeio). Though the VOC part was bad, speed gluing was an equalizer, as some would have put it.

(bjgmann). Yes the VOC part was bad. Very very bad. So bad that cans of speed glue had warnings advising children not to use the stuff. Speedgluing an equalizer though? Huh? In what sense? That you had an equal chance of winning or getting beat if you speed glued?

(zeio). One big argument over outlawing after-market boosters is that it essentially puts those players from associations with lesser resources at a major disadvantage.

(bjgmann). Yeahboy. If your association doesn't have a Ministry of Sport or big bucks in its slush fund players from your association with lesser resources are necessarily gonna be at a major disadvantage.

Face it. Life ain't fair. And competitive table tennis is even more unfairer than life.
 
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The real question is, why did they ever ban the boosters in the first place. And since the top players are all boosting already anyway, I don't think this will make much difference. But it should be done.

Adham Sharara claimed that banning boosters was to protect the health of the players! And no, I am not conflating this with the ban on speed glue, which was also to protect the health of the players. Boosters emerged as a response to the speed glue ban, and Sharara actually said that -- bearing in mind that boosters are things like baby oil and tea tree oil and extracts of citrus, AND have to be essentially non-volatile to not be detected by VOC machines.

In fact, the ITTF has lied about their reasons for more than one rule change, mostly in the Sharara era. Now we are living with the absurdity of ITTF banning a substance that players can apply that is perfectly legal if the manufacturer applies it!

I have played with boosted rubber (by a professional player). It's effect is quite small compared to what we had with speed glue. In the days of speed glue and 38 mm balls, we had defenders. We will continue to have them. We will never have a lot of them. One poster here well known for his trolling and theatrics has as far as I can tell never played with a boosted modern rubber with a 40+ ball, probably never used speed glue much either, and can be safely ignored.

One of the good things about the disdain that the current ITTF president has for his predecessor is that maybe slowly some of the really dumb stuff that came into force earlier can be reversed. Among the dumbest of dumb things, this rule is number 1.

I hope they do it and do it soon. By the way, I don't use the stuff myself. The effect is not worth the effort it takes to do it right. I like knowing what my rubber will be like every time I play.
 
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It was unfortunate Sharara described it as racket-doping. Though the VOC part was bad, speedgluing was an equalizer, as some would have put it. One big argument over outlawing after-market booster is that it essentially puts those players from associations with lesser resources at a major disadvantage.

A big way it was an equalizer was that an inexpensive sheet of rubber could have high performance when glued.
 
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When "that may be considered harmful or unhealthy for the persons" is added: Will this make all other treatment of the rubber legal, or will 2.4.7.1 handle it? Keeping the rubbers in the sun, sand the rubbers down, add some tacky stuff on the rubber. Will it be legal to sand the rubber beyond +/- 0,10mm roughness (T4)??

(I can't really see if any of this could be helpful for my game, but hey.. that is innovation!)

If you can treat the rubbers like this - what is left of the autorisation system?
 
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That additional phrase can open up the floodgate.

On the pessimistic side, the ITTF could instead use that as an excuse to outlaw booster at will, say, if you don't pay up this amount of approval fee, I'm gonna ban you.
 
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Adham Sharara claimed that banning boosters was to protect the health of the players! And no, I am not conflating this with the ban on speed glue, which was also to protect the health of the players. Boosters emerged as a response to the speed glue ban, and Sharara actually said that -- bearing in mind that boosters are things like baby oil and tea tree oil and extracts of citrus, AND have to be essentially non-volatile to not be detected by VOC machines.

In fact, the ITTF has lied about their reasons for more than one rule change, mostly in the Sharara era. Now we are living with the absurdity of ITTF banning a substance that players can apply that is perfectly legal if the manufacturer applies it!

I have played with boosted rubber (by a professional player). It's effect is quite small compared to what we had with speed glue. In the days of speed glue and 38 mm balls, we had defenders. We will continue to have them. We will never have a lot of them. One poster here well known for his trolling and theatrics has as far as I can tell never played with a boosted modern rubber with a 40+ ball, probably never used speed glue much either, and can be safely ignored.

One of the good things about the disdain that the current ITTF president has for his predecessor is that maybe slowly some of the really dumb stuff that came into force earlier can be reversed. Among the dumbest of dumb things, this rule is number 1.

I hope they do it and do it soon. By the way, I don't use the stuff myself. The effect is not worth the effort it takes to do it right. I like knowing what my rubber will be like every time I play.

There was a boy died from sniffing table tennis speed glue in Japan (thus JTTA's strong stance against any speed glues/boosters) so the effect on one's health is valid. Sharara's credibility, I'm not so sure.
 
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I know the ITTF posted it but there is no mention of legalization. However, the official site of magazine Table Tennis Kingdom has posted an entry on their interpretation(legalization) of the proposal.

As I have pointed out, they added a passage in T4 that intends to stop the distribution of aftermarket boosters.
 
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When "that may be considered harmful or unhealthy for the persons" is added: Will this make all other treatment of the rubber legal, or will 2.4.7.1 handle it? Keeping the rubbers in the sun, sand the rubbers down, add some tacky stuff on the rubber. Will it be legal to sand the rubber beyond +/- 0,10mm roughness (T4)??

(I can't really see if any of this could be helpful for my game, but hey.. that is innovation!)

If you can treat the rubbers like this - what is left of the autorisation system?

This rule was originally introduced to prevent exactly that. It'll do wonders to long pimples players if this interpretation is valid as they can make their own anti-LPs again.
 
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I know the ITTF posted it but there is no mention of legalization. However, the official site of magazine Table Tennis Kingdom has posted an entry on their interpretation(legalization) of the proposal.

As I have pointed out, they added a passage in T4 that intends to stop the distribution of aftermarket boosters.

Well if the rationale was "It is impossible to control boosters with the current equipment/procedures", I (and others in the thread) would interpret it as booster legalization. But you could be right and it could be for stopping players treating coverings with a chainsaw.
 
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No, the 40-year-old didn't die. He just fell unconscious for roughly 2 weeks from the fume when gluing at home. Butterfly had to recall over 120,000 bottles of "Super Long Chack" after that. It happened in March 2007. The ITTF had already decided to ban speedglue in 2006, which was postponed to 2008, after an ill-fated 1st attempt in 1993.

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2007/05/h0510-1.html
http://www.stellamate-clinic.org/blog/2013/08/2007514-593667.html
https://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/re_trend/11139167.html
 
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Well if the rationale was "It is impossible to control boosters with the current equipment/procedures", I (and others in the thread) would interpret it as booster legalization. But you could be right and it could be for stopping players treating coverings with a chainsaw.

There are no current procedures nor is their any equipment in place to discourage players from treating their coverings with chainsaws.

I sm not making this up.

But if the current proposal to the ITTF passes, players can boost their rubbers with whatever non-VOC booster they feel will float their boat.

Chempong. To paraphrase a line from Robert Burns' A Man's a Man For a' That, "The Man (Mann, or troll) o' independent mind, he looks and laughs at a' that."
 
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No, the 40-year-old didn't die. He just fell unconscious for roughly 2 weeks from the fume when gluing at home. Butterfly had to recall over 120,000 bottles of "Super Long Chack" after that. It happened in March 2007. The ITTF had already decided to ban speedglue in 2006, which was postponed to 2008, after an ill-fated 1st attempt in 1993.

http://www.mhlw.go.jp/houdou/2007/05/h0510-1.html
http://www.stellamate-clinic.org/blog/2013/08/2007514-593667.html
https://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/re_trend/11139167.html

Ah, my bad. I must've mistaken it for toluene overdose accident.
 
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