TODAY OUR PRIMARY FOCUS IS ON OUR SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
THE T3 PING PONG FOUNDATION...
Having completed a two-stage study over 16 weeks on the impact of our T3 Ping Pong table with those living with living with Alzheimer’s and dementia, we have seen our tables have the most extraordinary impact on their lives.
From what started as a table that was designed for more inclusivity and fun, it has shown to have an even more important role amongst the elderly and those with physical disabilities.
Ping Pong is truly the brain sport!
TABLE TENNIS EVOLVED INTO A TEAM SPORT
Passionate about ping pong, table tennis tables and design, here at T3 we turned the tables around.
Starting out from our base in London, we turned three-a-side ping pong into a reality! The ‘game’ of triples itself was invented back in ’79 by Professor Gunter Arndt, However the official three-a-side ping pong table was then created in 2012 under the direction of T3’s technical director who has been involved in table tennis table design for over a decade. All T3 tables were registered along with the original game patent.
TEAM SPIRIT
From the beginning, our mantra was “Two’s company, three’s a team”. Team spirit was in our DNA. We were passionate about encouraging as many people as possible, young and old, to get active, to pick up a bat, and play together as a team. The game was simple. But more than that, it was creative. Players of all abilities teamed up alongside one another, enjoying the individual challenges as well as the strategy only a team sport can offer. And for the table tennis pros, T3 took their game into a whole new dimension!
The table was unveiled at the London Olympic games legacy event – ‘Give it a Go’, at Parliament Fields on the 8th September 2013. It was an instant hit, voted ‘the most popular sport of the day’ by thousands of visitors.
It then went on to be tested by the pros at the World Championship of Ping Pong (WCPP) and the BBC. And guess what… they loved it!
If wasn’t just about 3x the fun, our three-a-side tables could accommodate 12 players at a time (six-a-side) for a game of Chaos Theory using two balls!
T3 was fast becoming the new kid on the ping pong block. It was faster and fiercer and offered players a wider range of shot directions and lengths than the conventional game, making room for some pretty spectacular rallies…
HISTORY: from a game to a sport…
In 1979 Professor Guenter Arndt, driven by lasting childhood memories of having to wait his turn at the side of the ping pong table, came up with the idea of ‘Triples Table Tennis’. And in 2009, he went on to document and publish ‘Triples Table Tennis’ the game rules, allowing the game to become a sport set in history. That may well have been where the story ended for now, were it not for T3… Guenter had a dream that 3-a-side table tennis would one day feature in the Olympic Games and here at T3, with the help of our international table tennis coaches we’re were going to do everything we could to put triples table tennis officially on the sporting map.
FOR US, MORE PEOPLE MEANS MORE
FUN, COME JOIN THE REVOLUTION
TIMELINE
MORE ABOUT… WIFF WAFF… GOSSIMA… PING PONG… TABLE TENNIS HISTORY
1880s Game originated in England as an after-dinner parlour game played by the upper-class. The sound generated in play gave the game its first name of ‘wiff-waff’.
1901 Hamley’s of Regent Street, then a sports manufacturer, was the first to manufacture a racket for wiff waff. The sound created by these hard bats gave the game its next name ‘ping-pong’.
1902 Englishman James Gibb, brings celluloid balls to the table.
1903 E.C Goode puts reinforced rubber on bat handles.
1920 ‘Table Tennis’ officially used as the alternative to ping pong.
1921 Table Tennis Association established.
1926 International Table Tennis Associations established around the world.
1927 London holds world’s first international table tennis competition.
1930 Table tennis banned in the Soviet Union for 30 years as it was believed to be bad for your eyes.
1950s S.W Hancock Ltd. introduces rubber and sponge to bats.
1968 The English Schools’ Table Tennis Association (ETTA) was formed in 1968 to give structure to competitive school table tennis which was on the increase throughout the country.
1971 US team allowed to enter China, the first official Americans since the communist takeover in 1949.
1979 3-a-side game of ‘Triples’ Table Tennis was invented by Professor Günter Arndt.
1988 Table tennis makes Olympic Games, (Seoul, Korea).
2000 Ball size increased from 38mm to 40mm to slow down the game.
2009 First Triples tournament held in Wollongong, Australia.
2013 First 3-a-side table designed, manufactured and launched in London by T3 Ping Pong Ltd.
2014 T3 SuperMini bats and tables, specially designed for 3-6 year olds, go into UK schools.
2014 The International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) confirms that all ITTF sanctioned and World Title events will now be played using plastic composite balls instead of the traditional celluloid ball.
2014 T3 All weather table unveiled by City of London on Hampstead Heath.
2014 T3 played in Switzerland for the first time.
2015 T3 played for the first time in Sweden and the USA.
2015 ISPO, the world’s largest sports trade event awards T3 Ping Pong as ‘FINALIST’ at the ISPO Brand New Awards.
2016 T3 played in the Netherlands for the first time.
2016 T3 reaches Australia.
2016 T3 reaches China.
2016 Launch of T3 Ping Pong Foundation.
2016 Research Study Stages 1 & II carried out of The Impact of T3 Ping Pong on the Elderly.
