Ping Pong premieres September 9, 2013 at 10 PM on PBS stations. (Check local listings.)
Call this old age, extreme edition: Seven players with 620 years between them compete in the Over 80 World Table Tennis Championships in China’s Inner Mongolia. British players Terry, 81, who has been given a week to live, and Les, 91, a weightlifter and poet, are going for the gold. Inge, 89, from Germany, has used table tennis to paddle her way out of dementia. And Texan Lisa, 85, is playing for the first time. Ping Pong is a wonderfully unusual story of hope, regret, friendship, ambition, love — and sheer human tenacity in the face of aging and mortality.
After the broadcast, you can visit the Ping Pong companion site to watch the full film online for free for a limited time following the broadcast, view a video interview with the director, download a discussion guide and other viewing resources, and find out what’s happened in the players’ lives since the cameras stopped rolling.
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