London Mayor Boris Johnson Talks Trash to China on Olympic Ping Pong

As the Summer Olympics were passed off from 2008 host Beijing to 2012 host London, Mayor Boris Johnson gave a bizarre, rambling speech in which he said table tennis, the national sport of China, is really a British game:

"I say this respectfully to our Chinese hosts who have excelled magnificently at ping pong," Johnson began. "Ping pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th Century. It was, and it was called whiff whaff."

Johnson wasn't done there.

"There you have, I think, the essential difference between us and the rest of the world," Johnson said. "Other nations such as the French looked at the dining table and saw the opportunity to have dinner. We looked at the dining table and saw the opportunity to play whiff whaff. That is why London is the sporting capital of the world. I say to the Chinese and I say to the world – ping pong is coming home."

Tough talk. But considering that the Chinese won all four table tennis gold medals as well as two silvers and two bronzes last week, while Great Britain didn't win any table tennis medals, I think the British Olympic team is going to have a tough time backing that talk up.