When will pickleball be an Olympic sport?

When will pickleball be an Olympic sport?

  • 2028-32

    Votes: 1 11.1%

  • 2036-40

    Votes: 1 11.1%

  • 2044-48

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • More than 50 years away

    Votes: 3 33.3%

  • Next century

    Votes: 4 44.4%
  • Total voters
    9
I think Padel will make it before pickleball. Honestly, all the Americans should hope that pickleball doesn't become an Olympic sport because that would result in a ton of Chinese table tennis players converting to the sport and dominating it.
 
atatu said:
I think Padel will make it before pickleball. Honestly, all the Americans should hope that pickleball doesn't become an Olympic sport because that would result in a ton of Chinese table tennis players converting to the sport and dominating it.
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Like they've dominated court tennis?
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
Like they've dominated court tennis?
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Do you mean tennis or is "court tennis" a separate olympic sport I'm not aware of ? If you mean tennis I think that table tennis has a lot more in common with pickleball than it does with tennis, specifically the dimensions of a table are much closer to a pickleball court than to a tennis court. The top table tennis players in the world are phenomenal athletes, the top pickleball players in the world are decent athletes who for the most part are failed tennis players.
 
You guys do realise competitive pickle is only played in the the US, and maybe Canada? Everywhere else it's Padel.


Padel Rackets - Tennis Warehouse Europe

www.tenniswarehouse-europe.com www.tenniswarehouse-europe.com

Most tennis courts outside the US are private or club owned. There aren't nearly as many public courts as in the US. So very few have been modified for pickleball.
Whereas many clubs have installed padel courts. Mainly due to the scoring and how different it is from tennis, few clubs adopt it in Europe or Asia.
 
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Crocodile said:
I don’t have an answer but probably check the iOC website to see if it’s on the agenda
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Not sure that P'ball quite meets all the IOC requirements at this time. Even if it met the criteria of 75 countries & 4 continents in the very near future, the earliest that it might possibly be included as an Olympic sport is 2028 (Los Angeles). But it might be more likely that it qualifies for the 2032 Olympics

By the time that Pb qualifies for the Olympics, the fad may have subsided. Hard to say. Remember Racquetball & Racketball (Squash 57)? Popularity rose markedly in the 1970s and 80s. But interest waned by the early 1990s

P'ball is definitely not on the list for 2024 in Paris. Events have already been announced. 4 or 5 new events have been announced while a number have been dropped -- including baseball, softball & karate.
 
WYK said:
You guys do realise it is only played in the the US, and maybe Canada? Everywhere else it's Padel.


Padel Rackets - Tennis Warehouse Europe

www.tenniswarehouse-europe.com www.tenniswarehouse-europe.com
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Not so according to several sources. Currently there are more than 60 national organizations across the world in the International Federation of Pickleball. Last count I heard was more than 36 million players across the globe. Besides the US, Pb has taken off in Canada, India, Spain, UK, France

Padel is very popular in Mexico, Argentina, the UK, Spain and other parts of Europe. Less so in other areas. However, it is supposedly played in more than 80 countries. As of Jan 2023, the estimated number of players, worldwide, was 25 million.

IF these numbers are correct, Pickleball may have already surpassed Padel in popularity across the globe. But can't say for sure exactly what the posted numbers really mean
 
optic yellow said:
I think the concept there is that ping pong to pickleball is not a big leap whereas ping pong to tennis is.
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atatu said:
Do you mean tennis or is "court tennis" a separate olympic sport I'm not aware of ? If you mean tennis I think that table tennis has a lot more in common with pickleball than it does with tennis, specifically the dimensions of a table are much closer to a pickleball court than to a tennis court. The top table tennis players in the world are phenomenal athletes, the top pickleball players in the world are decent athletes who for the most part are failed tennis players.
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Not my experience. Started playing pickleball before the pandemic but overall have played maybe 2 dozen times.

OTOH, I've played ping pong, tennis & badminton for several decades. Pickleball combined elements of all 3 sports. I feel that my Tennis & Badm skills have transferred somewhat more than ping pong. The best players I've come across playing Pb are usually collegiate & pro tennis players.
 
alexio said:
only after squash
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Squash has been vying for Olympic inclusion since 1992 (if not earlier). I believe that there's been a significant push since 2012. Roger Federer, Andre Agassi, Kim Clijsters, Stefan Edberg & Andy Murray are some tennis players who've played and have given their support to including squash in the Olympics
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
Not my experience. Started playing pickleball before the pandemic but overall have played maybe 2 dozen times.

OTOH, I've played ping pong, tennis & badminton for several decades. Pickleball combined elements of all 3 sports. I feel that my Tennis & Badm skills have transferred somewhat more than ping pong. The best players I've come across playing Pb are usually collegiate & pro tennis players.
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Maybe it is a reaction to the reflex dinking of kitchen duels, which are extremely reminiscent, at least on the surface, of high level ping pong rallies.
 
optic yellow said:
Maybe it is a reaction to the reflex dinking of kitchen duels, which are extremely reminiscent, at least on the surface, of high level ping pong rallies.
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Much more likely to hit dinks, net drops or touch shots in badminton. I'll hit dinks or drops shots in PP every once in a blue moon but I tend to use these in tennis a bit more (cuz of my competitive badm experience).

Will use quite a bit of spin in tennis. Even moreso in ping pong. But considerably less in pickleball -- cuz Pb paddles are too slick to impart as much spin as a decent PP paddle does.

Tennis, badminton & pickleball incorporates volleys & overheads. PP does not allow volleys and overheads are extremely rare.
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
Much more likely to hit dinks, net drops or touch shots in badminton. I'll hit dinks or drops shots in PP every once in a blue moon but I tend to use these in tennis a bit more (cuz of my competitive badm experience).

Will use quite a bit of spin in tennis. Even moreso in ping pong. But considerably less in pickleball -- cuz Pb paddles are too slick to impart as much spin as a decent PP paddle does.

Tennis, badminton & pickleball incorporates volleys & overheads. PP does not allow volleys and overheads are extremely rare.
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I literally mean like the way a layperson sees PB players reaching out to get things at the kitchen and the noise they hear when contact is made feels the same as high level PP rallies do. It doesn't matter that the shotmaking is different because that is not the level of complexity it is being looked at.
 
optic yellow said:
I literally mean like the way a layperson sees PB players reaching out to get things at the kitchen and the noise they hear when contact is made feels the same as high level PP rallies do. It doesn't matter that the shotmaking is different because that is not the level of complexity it is being looked at.
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Huh?

How does this translate to Chinese ping pong players transitioning to pickleball and becoming dominant?
 
Since the Olympics is simply a thinly guised outlet for nationalism that mostly sheds light on sports people don't regularly care much about, seems like a good fit ?
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
What day is hell expected to freeze over?

Don't see P'ball ever becoming an Olympic sport. I would rather see a higher-skill racket sport, like Squash or Padel, make it to the Olympics
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As a regular squash player (I play it more often than tennis due to accessibility and weather where I live), it greatly annoys me that it isn’t part of the Olympic programme.

I believe that historically, the IOC thought that it wasn’t TV friendly (as the ball is so small and moves so fast), and that in recent times they’ve been greatly concerned about the Olympics in general losing popularity and have tried to add events which they’ve thought would appeal more to younger audiences.

I believe that has been their reasoning but I still hate it though.

I also want Futsal at the Olympics. I’d quite like it if Futsal replaced Football for the men, while Football remained for the women (with the women’s tournament unlike the men’s involving full strength teams).
 
I don't see pickleball making the Olympics anytime soon. It's huge in the US, but it's not nearly popular enough worldwide yet; you don't see (American) football in the Olympics for the same reason. I'm sure it exists outside the US, but it's not big enough. As others have mentioned, I would bet Padel would make it before pickleball unless something significant changes.
 
I don't know, how popular worldwide is it to cross country ski with a small caliber gun and shoot targets along the way? How about scrubbing a stretch of ice to slow down a granite rock hunk just perfectly? Isn't the point of the Olympics to celebrate an obscure sport that people will quickly ignore for four years after the closing ceremony? I'm not sure the Olympics is really about mainstream sports. Think about it, FIFA, NBA, MLB, and Tennis players might care about the novelty of a gold medal, but I think if you really made them choose between success at the Olympics or a world cup, nba championship, world series ring, or grand slam, I don't think they would choose the gold medal. In fact, every Olympics there are a bunch of news stories about big time pro athletes skipping the Olympics because they present an injury risk with little monetary return. I say bring me your weird, your strange, your masses of competitions that are barely sports and put them all in the Olympics. Padel? Pickleball? Grape mashing? Sure!
 
SystemicAnomaly said:
Much more likely to hit dinks, net drops or touch shots in badminton. I'll hit dinks or drops shots in PP every once in a blue moon but I tend to use these in tennis a bit more (cuz of my competitive badm experience).

Will use quite a bit of spin in tennis. Even moreso in ping pong. But considerably less in pickleball -- cuz Pb paddles are too slick to impart as much spin as a decent PP paddle does.

Tennis, badminton & pickleball incorporates volleys & overheads. PP does not allow volleys and overheads are extremely rare.
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@optic yellow

My two cents:

good level pball = a lot of dinking … fortunately or unfortunately

Pickleball singles is basically tennis when it comes to these “other sport/game (tennis, ping pong) comparisons” … nothing else is as close … so let’s just talk doubles.

pball doubles:

Only in one area does the ping pong analogy hold … it just happens to be the thing that decides wins and losses in good intermediate pball and up … the kitchen. Even though the court dimensions have been shrunk from tennis … there is still tennis like movement from baseline including hitting baseline strokes and moving up to kitchen. There is no ping pong from pball baseline … other than I have seen intermediate hit good enough ping shot adjacent baseline shots (no torso rotation … arming punch shots like ping pong). You can play a very good level of pball and never hit a tennis stroke with torso rotation because the baseline isn’t even close to the important key doubles skills (everything kitchen).

So imo … ping analogy in pball is valid at the kitchen because most of the play at the kitchen is played hitting the ball with torso square to the net. In the tennis forum we call this arming the body without body/torso rotation … not to mention all kinds of hideous kinetic chain violations. :-D I guess you could make the case that dinking is analogous to ping pong … but to me if you want to visualize ping pong just watch backhand volleys at at the kitchen. Watch two opponents in a firefight hitting backhand volleys … that is a ping pong backhand, not a tennis backhand.

Spin … actually pretty good spin in pickleball now with the carbon face paddles … in particular the thermoformed paddles. Spin like tennis and strings? No … not even close. Two problems … no strings to grip the ball, and second you are dealing with a 26g wiffle. In tennis … you can hit a heavy ball … ball sinks into strings … and you get both power and spin. With the 26g wiffle … to much power/slap means less spin … you have to take some pace off for max dip.

Overheads … wasn’t sure if I read comment correctly … but yes overheads important in pball (but a lot come back :mad: ). Tennis overheads with rotation often are an advantage over those that did not play tennis when it comes to hitting a good enough overhead to end the point. Lobbing is harder in pball than tennis … has to be much more precise. Also … many situations where square to the net frying pan grip (sw) overheads are the right choice.
 
ByeByePoly said:
Only in one area does the ping pong analogy hold … it just happens to be the thing that decides wins and losses in good intermediate pball and up … the kitchen. Even though the court dimensions have been shrunk from tennis … there is still tennis like movement from baseline including hitting baseline strokes and moving up to kitchen. There is no ping pong from pball baseline … other than I have seen intermediate hit good enough ping shot adjacent baseline shots (no torso rotation … arming punch shots like ping pong). You can play a very good level of pball and never hit a tennis stroke with torso rotation because the baseline isn’t even close to the important key doubles skills (everything kitchen).

So imo … ping analogy in pball is valid at the kitchen because most of the play at the kitchen is played hitting the ball with torso square to the net. In the tennis forum we call this arming the body without body/torso rotation … not to mention all kinds of hideous kinetic chain violations. :-D I guess you could make the case that dinking is analogous to ping pong … but to me if you want to visualize ping pong just watch backhand volleys at at the kitchen. Watch two opponents in a firefight hitting backhand volleys
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Yeah this must be why the impression is left then, what stands out by far the most when watching higher level pickleball is the kitchen dueling. It seems, as you say, as if the entire game is oriented around that.
 
optic yellow said:
Yeah this must be why the impression is left then, what stands out by far the most when watching higher level pickleball is the kitchen dueling. It seems, as you say, as if the entire game is oriented around that.
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You can win at highest levels of pro pickleball singles with less kitchen/dink play … but even there a Ben Johns can force his opponents into kitchen dink play. But in pro doubles … in current state of the game … doubles is won by team that controls the kitchen (dinking and speed ups after much patience). Watch multiple Ben and Collin Johns doubles finals … opponents seldom beat their kitchen defense/control with kitchen offense. IMO pickleball is a way more tilted to defense than tennis.

A good 3.5 match where they haven’t perfected the kitchen dink game can be more enjoyable to watch than pro doubles. As rec players improve … often the matches look more boring (opposite of tennis). I think that’s why it’s hard to watch matches and judge level. We all know in tennis what someone looks like warming up in tennis often has little to do with who wins. In pickleball multiply that by 10. You can watch men’s rec 5.0 gold doubles matches from last pball US Open, and someone that doesn’t play would not know how to judge. Levels are decided by small margins at the kitchen … a dink one foot to high or long gets smashed. Many of those 5.0 matches will not look like what we are used to watching 5.0 tennis. But … if you know what you are watching for … you watch for how many mistakes are made leaving the ball up slightly to high for opponent smash … say in an hours play. Some of that visually slow boring looking play of 4.5/5.0 rec play is amazingly low kitchen error play. You don’t realize how hard the kitchen dinking game is until you play. I thought it would be frickin easy after tennis. And it is … if you are talking 5 in a row … without net clearance mistakes measured in inches against good teams. Personally … even after an enjoyable six months of pickleball, I think pickleball doubles would become more enjoyable if the baseline skills counted for more than they do now. Kitchen 9 … Baseline 1.
 
ByeByePoly said:
You can win at highest levels of pro pickleball singles with less kitchen/dink play … but even there a Ben Johns can force his opponents into kitchen dink play. But in pro doubles … in current state of the game … doubles is won by team that controls the kitchen (dinking and speed ups after much patience). Watch multiple Ben and Collin Johns doubles finals … opponents seldom beat their kitchen defense/control with kitchen offense. IMO pickleball is a way more tilted to defense than tennis.

A good 3.5 match where they haven’t perfected the kitchen dink game can be more enjoyable to watch than pro doubles. As rec players improve … often the matches look more boring (opposite of tennis). I think that’s why it’s hard to watch matches and judge level. We all know in tennis what someone looks like warming up in tennis often has little to do with who wins. In pickleball multiply that by 10. You can watch men’s rec 5.0 gold doubles matches from last pball US Open, and someone that doesn’t play would not know how to judge. Levels are decided by small margins at the kitchen … a dink one foot to high or long gets smashed. Many of those 5.0 matches will not look like what we are used to watching 5.0 tennis. But … if you know what you are watching for … you watch for how many mistakes are made leaving the ball up slightly to high for opponent smash … say in an hours play. Some of that visually slow boring looking play of 4.5/5.0 rec play is amazingly low kitchen error play. You don’t realize how hard the kitchen dinking game is until you play. I thought it would be frickin easy after tennis. And it is … if you are talking 5 in a row … without net clearance mistakes measured in inches against good teams. Personally … even after an enjoyable six months of pickleball, I think pickleball doubles would become more enjoyable if the baseline skills counted for more than they do now. Kitchen 9 … Baseline 1.
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It is still boring to watch
 
Wrong forum.
There's a pickleball forum where you can make this and any other questions about this intruder passtime which is parasitizing the sport which this forum is about.
Reported this time. Next time I will propose a permanent ban on you.
 
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Sudacafan said:
Wrong forum.
There's a pickleball forum where you can make this and any other questions about this intruder passtime which is parasitizing the sport which this forum is about.
Reported this time. Next time I will propose a permanent ban on you.
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chill … we mainly talk about paddles in that forum that shall not be named.
 
I heard from a competitive pickleball player that a good paddle costs between $250-$350. That's fine, about the same as a good racket these days and you don't have to restring....but then he told me the paddle will only last 2-3 months before becoming "de-laminated" and illegal to use in tournament play. If that's true then that's possibly the stupiest thing yet about pickleball.
 
atatu said:
I heard from a competitive pickleball player that a good paddle costs between $250-$350. That's fine, about the same as a good racket these days and you don't have to restring....but then he told me the paddle will only last 2-3 months before becoming "de-laminated" and illegal to use in tournament play. If that's true then that's possibly the stupiest thing yet about pickleball.
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Not true … at least now … I just bought a paddle a pro could play with for $89. Many recent upstart companies shaking up the Selkirks and Joolas.

The paddle delamination was a recent issue (pros and rec play) with some of the next gen thermoformed paddles … which turned out to actually be plastic core crushing rather than delamination. All being worked out … manufacturing with the longer period of high heat to weld thermoformed carbon edges degraded the plastic cores.
 
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Pickleball sucks big time, also if you touch the line of that front zone are you ok if just a bit or is it illegal and who cares
 
atatu said:
I heard from a competitive pickleball player that a good paddle costs between $250-$350. That's fine, about the same as a good racket these days and you don't have to restring....but then he told me the paddle will only last 2-3 months before becoming "de-laminated" and illegal to use in tournament play. If that's true then that's possibly the stupiest thing yet about pickleball.
Click to expand...

I can’t give you more information here or my brother Sud goes into a viscous spiral (hate pickleball spasms -> profess hatred -> drinking -> hate pickleball spasms -> profess hatred -> drinking).

I love my brother Sud … so I can’t say the following: ;) :love:

- big deal for pro pballers to get a paddle sponsor … not making tennis $$$
- only bigger paddle manufacturers can afford to sponsor many pro players
- rec market buys what pros play with
- small number of big paddle companies allowed premium pricing
- flood of top quality lower priced ($90-$170) have hit the market in last six months
- at the front end of rapid paddle evolution … paddle might become obsolete before it wears out

The recent carbon faces were a big evolution (in context of paddles) … allowed additional spin and control. The problem has been the carbon faces (actually resin layer over carbon cloth) wears down over time … lose that new paddle smell (spin 8-B ). Also … another problem has been some of the popular gen 1 expensive paddles (Joola) were known to snap at the handle. Since no one is providing me a free paddle :-D … seems like the smarter choice is a quality $100 paddle that might have to be replaced every 6 months (either wear or better new paddle tech), than any more expensive paddle with marginal difference (if any) regardless of warranty length. Like you said … considering tennis racquet restringing … good to go. Also … compared to golf I no longer play … I could buy an expensive paddle once a month and still be cheaper than golf (the true evil … not pickleball).

Wow … extra information you did not want, that Sud did not want me to discuss … all posted in the wrong forum … ttw trifecta.

For my bro @Sudacafan



how I picture Sud:

 
ByeByePoly said:
I can’t give you more information here or my brother Sud goes into a viscous spiral (hate pickleball spasms -> profess hatred -> drinking -> hate pickleball spasms -> profess hatred -> drinking).

I love my brother Sud … so I can’t say the following: ;) :love:

- big deal $$$ for pro pballers to get a paddle sponsor … not making tennis $$$
- only bigger paddle manufacturers can afford to sponsor many pro players
- rec market buys what pros play with
- small number of big paddle companies allowed premium pricing
- flood of top quality lower priced ($90-$170) have hit the market in last six months
- at the front end of rapid paddle evolution … paddle might become obsolete before it wears out

The recent carbon faces were a big evolution (in context of paddles) … allowed additional spin and control. The problem has been the carbon faces (actually resin layer over carbon cloth) wears down over time … lose that new paddle smell (spin 8-B ). Also … another problem has been some of the popular gen 1 expensive paddles (Joola) were known to snap at the handle. Since no one is providing me a free paddle :-D … seems like the smarter choice is a quality $100 paddle that might have to be replaced every 6 months (either wear or better new paddle tech), than any more expensive paddle with marginal difference (if any) regardless of warranty length.

Wow … extra information you did not want, that Sud did not want me to discuss … all posted in the wrong forum … ttw trifecta.

For my bro @Sudacafan



how I picture Sud:

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I would only wish to clarify that when I enjoy my precious vintages, the last thing I think of is pickleball. It ruins my Malbec.
 
Sudacafan said:
I would only wish to clarify that when I enjoy my precious vintages, the last thing I think of is pickleball. It ruins my Malbec.
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Well … I think you are denying the subconscious angry thoughts roaming your … no doubt … massive brain space.

btw … my 7 years here in ttwland prepared me for walking the lack of pride pickleball plank. Bookmark this for your future pickleball cognitive dissonance.

Think of a pickleball paddle as tennis racquet nicorette.
 
optic yellow said:
You don't need to get a full set of new clubs every year, you know...
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That was never my golf problem … it was golf club monthly Selkirk $$$ bill. I only remember changing my full set of clubs once ... but of course everyone has to change out their putter and driver on occasion (it’s a rule 8-B ).
 
ByeByePoly said:
That was never my golf problem … it was golf club monthly Selkirk $$$ bill. I only remember changing my full set of clubs once ... but of course everyone has to change out their putter and driver on occasion (it’s a rule 8-B ).
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Oh yeah belonging to a club changes the cost paradigm. But it's not as if there aren't tennis and pickleball clubs...

I have actually never changed my putter. It is a proper antique (late 60s Ping, when Karsten Solheim was at the peak of his creative majesty with the flat sticks) so I've never seen any real reason to. Maybe the "I should have variety" will hit at some point but when most other people are using modern putters there is a real ego boost to playing something 50 years old.
 
optic yellow said:
Oh yeah belonging to a club changes the cost paradigm. But it's not as if there aren't tennis and pickleball clubs...

I have actually never changed my putter. It is a proper antique (late 60s Ping, when Karsten Solheim was at the peak of his creative majesty with the flat sticks) so I've never seen any real reason to. Maybe the "I should have variety" will hit at some point but when most other people are using modern putters there is a real ego boost to playing something 50 years old.
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never changed putters … wow … that’s Roy McAvoy level respect (y)
 
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