Core to the Sundance festivities last month, was the first ever K-Swiss Ping Pong Challenge, where four filmmakers squared off at the net, as well as on screen. K-Swiss used the opportunity to enlist a videographer that offer a bit of Ping Pong history. Apparently the sport was born the Victorian era, when dinner was followed by clearing the table for a game with books stacked up to be used as a net.

The artist Gabriel Orozco once said “Ping-pong is a game about the universe playing, or it’s a game about how the universe is so arbitrary and how it’s constant.” In his images of table tennis, the photographer Douglas Ljungkvist approaches a similar sense of timelessness, absurdity, and the sublime. A Swede who currently lives and works in New York, Ljungkvist brings a surprising personal vision to the game.

No, we didn’t make it to Sundance… but our associates from K-Swiss are giving us the full feed (check our Facebook) from the snow strewn streets & check back at 3.30 PMT. In the spirit of the annual celebration of indie film, K-Swiss and GenArt are getting down with some of the brightest young directors for a Ping Pong Classic. Perfect for all comers, ping pong is an old school fave that lends well to the party vibe of Park City…

Even though these days Silicon Valley is probably better known for sports that involve corporate take-overs and tech wars, there’s another boom that start-up central is responsible for — Ping Pong. Sons and daughters of software engineers, it seems largely, are fostering their kids’ ping pong dreams, hoping to take on dominant China’s teams in 2012. Who knew the sport could lead to so many possible paths of greatness.

One day, sports will evolve to this caliber. Mix blood-sport table tennis with a healthy appetite for destruction and you would have this. What an epic match.

While it’s a bit of stretch to put ‘badass’ and ‘ping pong’ in the same sentence, The Hardbat Classic has all the hallmarks of a world-class sports franchise. Vegas. Beer. Fanatical players. Pro apparel. In June, we wrote a preview about the biggest ever table tennis tournament, sponsored by Bud Light and K-Swiss, but we didn’t know the depths of the fanaticism…

The twins look like they have a ways to go on getting the 266 Pairs of the super Limited Edition Partners & Spade & K-Swiss ‘Ping Pong Classic’ ready for us. ha But luckily they did not really have to nail polish a stripe on each pair themselves – what may not be so lucky is if you miss out on gettin’ one of them pairs for yourself !

Table tennis is making a come back in a big way, with the Hard Bat Classic last month and now with the launch of the “August Sweatout Ping Pong Classic” which K-Swiss has teamed up for a special shoe collaboration. Andy Spade and Anthony Sperduti of Partners & Spade…

It’s no real surprise that table tennis continues to get more and more popular as this wacky vid below shows us – it’s fun, anyone can play, and gulp a tournament like the recent HardBat Classic in Vegas offers up mega bucks for your effort and hard practiced skill. Well no worries that you may have missed out this year, you still have a shot to WIN your very own Limited Edition HardBat Classic official sneaks by simply giving us 5 reasons why you love to ping and pong.