Chemical vs Visual inspection :- A primer for USATT tournament directors & referees

[Jarvis93]

This is just an informational message to all USATT Tournament Directors & Referees (Umpires)
This information is by no means limited to international or 5 star tournaments but especially applies more to low level tournaments (0 star to 2 star UATT events).
The original intent of ITTF’s chemical examination of rackets is first and foremost about health issues & only then about performance issues and most definitely NOT the other way around. But it seems like most USATT tournament directors & referees have been brainwashed by USATT & ITTF to think that chemical inspection rackets is ONLY about performance (and nothing about health) and therefore no chemical inspection of rackets is needed at lower levels. The health of a lowest level amateur player is just as important as the health of a professional table tennis athlete. ITTF cannot spot check a few pro players for boosters & speed-glues and then USATT tournament directors & referees make crazy claim that it is not necessary to perform chemical inspection at low level tournaments (0 star to 2 star) because performance is not big deal at low level tournaments.

Umpires & referees cannot ask a player to take a look at their racket VISUALLY unless the umpires have complete & exhaustive set of chemical inspection equipment available.

A player has a right to have their opponents’ rackets chemically examined FIRST before being subjected to a visual inspection
A sampling of 20 tournament directors & referees were talked to about this issue with casual enquiries & 100% of them admitted that there is zero chemical inspection of rackets in their 0 star to 2 star tournaments. Additionally 100% of them said it was not necessary because it only impact performance issues which are only important at professional levels & not amateur lower levels. Not a single tournament director or referee or umpire even had any clue of this as to why ITTF first initiated the glue ban in 1995 as a heath issue first.

Use of thickness measurement gauges by ITTF & USATT to claim that it tests for boosters is a complete fraud & a joke & not acceptable. Why ? At higher levels Pros will pre-test test illegally boosted rackets at factory to meet the 4 mm limit. At lower levels a player can simply use a 2 mm rubber or even a 1.7 mm rubber instead of a max thickness rubber and boost it like crazy & still stay within the 4 mm limit.

Additionally ALL players must have their rackets chemically examined for every match in a tournament because in this case it is ALSO about performance (in addition to the primary health reason) in a USATT tournament of any level (0 star to 5 star). Why ? Because ratings are sacred for a tournament player. Therefore if just about every smooth rubber is boosted up like crazy (and given that the rules are also ridiculously biased about pips players), then this severely skews the ratings database in favor of speed-glue & booster cheats, which is already skewed even without booster & speed-glue cheating. (Let us not even go to how some pips players treat their pips & so we are all even. This is not the case because for every isolated incident of pips treating, there exists like 1000 booster cheats) .

This email is based on many players’ experiences as to how most referees & umpires have a natural bias against pips players & since visual inspection is far more easier than chemical inspection, most umpires on power trips or even those not on power trips but want to just show that they are doing their jobs to move up to next level (Umpires as you know are supervised by IUs etc to pass the required practical portion of the test to move up to next level) just perform visual inspection more strictly on pips players.

Additionally in most pips player vs smooth rubber matches, or in general, the smooth rubber player has no problem as long as they are on their way to winning a match. But if a player starts losing to a pips player, all of a sudden the pips suddenly becomes a problem. The losing player stops the match in the middle of match and demands to speak to the referee & the match stops for 15 minute to 30 minutes to verify if the pips are really legal checking the ITTF LARC or even pip size etc). This is NOT a made up story. This types of incidents are more commonplace & there are scores of such incidents worldwide and definitely in USA as well.
If a sanctioned (or even non-sanctioned tournament) flyer says “ All USATT & ITTF rules & regulations will be enforced” , this actually causes of lots of confusion. Because there really are no USATT “rules”, but you just default to ITTF “rules” 100 % . As far as “regulations” go it gets very confusing to a player. Are you enforcing ITTF regulations as used in a 5 star or WTT event ? Or are you using some sort of made up regulations for lower level USATT tournaments ? If you claim to be using ITTF regulations then a player has a right to expect each and every racket to chemically examined because the speed-glue & booster issues are first and foremost health issues & only then also performance issue.
Several players have volunteered to track this at many USATT tournaments going forward, including small 0 star & 2 star tournaments.
This also brings us to another ridiculous false assumption (or claim) by most players who speed-glue or boost. Their claim is that they are not hurting anybody & therefore their health & body is their own business but that is far from the truth. When the original speed-glue ban was initiated in 1995, the second hand effect of speed-glue upon players who do not speed-glue was considered a very dangerous issue according to ITTF (You need to check about what then the ITTF equipment committee chairman Dr.Rufford Harrison stated in 1995 about dangerous possible effects upon spectators, children & pregnant women before imposing the first strict speed-glue ban which was of course repealed & replaced with a useless version) .
Going forward, strict visual examination of rackets without complete chemical examination of rackets FIRST would be unacceptable. ITTF & USATT had waived the rights of visual inspection of rackets if they choose to waive & bypass health oriented & then performance oriented chemical examination of rackets FIRST. Of course USATT can conveniently claim that visual examination & chemical examination of rackets are not related but that claim would be ludicrous because they are both related performance-wise because lot more players are glue & booster cheats compared to a very small number players who treated their pips illegally & this is blown way out of proportion of course by the much larger % players who are glue cheats. However it is also a simple fact that most umpires & referees are biased more against pips players. Additionally umpires NEED to perform aggressive visual examination if they need to pass practical portions of their test to move up to next umpire level since this has to monitored by IUs or NUs at tournaments. If you want to engage in selective harassment of pips players with strict visual inspection but with zero chemical inspection, there will be problems. A player has a right to file a complaint to the local health department and start demanding that the facility be shut down completely pending further investigation for health violations. The player will also have a right to complain to the city council or mayor etc to try to have the facility shut down not only for tournaments but also for casual weekly play at city owned or university recreation center or whatever.
Of course the player has a right to take the city & club to court varying from a small claims court to arbitration with the Court of Arbitration for sports’ office located in New York . While going to Court of arbitration is an expensive ordeal for an individual, a class action either at local courts or with CAS is not entirely out of question. But then again, contacting sponsors of that event or other sponsors for future events may become necessary & notifying them of potential health related liabilities of sponsoring tabletennis.

Nobody is looking to go out of their way looking for trouble to create problems for USATT or ITTF. And no serious problems exist at the moment but this email is just to make aware of tournament directors & referees (umpires) that there could be serious problems if you engage in unequal enforcement of USATT / ITTF rules / regulations.

But if USATT cannot live & let live & USATT umpires want to insist on performing ONLY visual inspection, they must not only be ready to perform chemical inspection FIRST not only for that match but also should have performed chemical inspection for every other match in the tournament a well not only for health reasons but for performance equality (for ratings) as well. You have been promptly notified.

It is not possible to email every tournament director & referee even if someone has all their emails but it is the responsibility of USATT to make their tournament directors & referees of this issue by notifying

[Monarchs]

The situation is not much different in Canada. Speed gluing & boosting is as ramapant as ever with zero chemical inspection of rackets for sure at lower levels. As you said, the helath of lower level player does not matter at all to TTCanada or its president Adham Sharara who actually was either president or vice-president of ITTF for more than 25 years I think, all thru this major scandal that started in 1995 with no end in sight. IOC president Thomas Bach acts as if he has no clue.