Ping Pong

Forget sudoku, the pensioners in this chirpy doc know a more fun way of keeping a grip on their marbles: table tennis. Inhalers at the ready, they’re competing in the over-80s category of the World Table Tennis Championships in Inner Mongolia. The man to beat in the singles is seven times world champion Les, 90, from Wakefield, who lifts weights like a whippersnapper of 45. The crowd guns for 100-year-old Aussie Dorothy in the women’s competition. The villain is America’s Lisa; she’s got one hell of a competitive streak. Here she is sizing up Dorothy: ‘This old girl? I should get her. She can’t move.’ It’s breezy fun, touching lightly on illness and worse. Saying that, there’s a spot of intrigue as the tournament hots up. Les’s bat goes missing before a match. Has he lost it? Or is foul play at work?