Yoshi! Yoshi!

Shivering spectators applauded, the police band whanged away for all it was worth. Any kind of action helped cut the chill of Tokyo's clammy, cavernous Metropolitan Gymnasium. Then the contestants, some 150 table-tennis players from 16 different countries, marched in, a radiant blaze of uniforms under the bright lights. Any color except white was allowed at the 23rd World Championship

Table Tennis Tournament. White was barred because a white celluloid ball can be lost against such a background.

Once the tournament got started, the flame-red jerseys of Communist Chinese flared against the green of Australians and Germans, the orange of Portugal, brown of Korea. Cobalt from South Vietnam clashed with ten other shades of blue from ten assorted countries. As if to keep everyone happy, there were almost as many prizes as there were colors on the floor: the Swaythling Cup for the men's team champs, the Corbillon Cup for the ladies' team champs, the St. Bride Vase for the men's singles, the Gasper-Geist Cup for ladies' singles, the Pope Trophy for ladies' doubles, the Iran Cup for men's doubles. But most of the prizes did not go very far. As final after final was played out last week, the Japanese hosts walked off with most of the silverware.

A Failure of Gamesmanship. Using paddles with soft, sponge-rubber faces that take the ping out of pingpong but slice off some wicked spins, the agile and tireless Japanese wasted no time taking the Swaythling Cup. They stuck stubbornly to their unorthodox "penholder" grip (which makes for an awkward backhand), but attacked so steadily that their opponents could seldom smash to their weak side. "Yoshi! Yoshi!" (Good! Good!) the partisan crowd cried each time a Japanese scored. Japanese women players stopped and bowed low every time they scored on a net cord shot or bounced a winning shot off the edge of the table. While minding their manners, they suffered one of the few Japanese losses: the ladies' cup went to Rumania's defending champs.

Even with gamesmanship, Britain's Richard Bergmann could do little against the Japanese: he stopped one match to complain that the ball was too soft and not really round, took half an hour, examined 192 balls before he continued his play for the men's singles title. The winner: Japan's Ichiro Ogimura, in an all-Japanese final against Defending Champion Toshiaki Tanaka.

A Picture of Kichiji. By taking every title except the ladies' Corbillon Cup, the ladies' doubles (also won by Rumania) and the mixed doubles (won by the U.S.), the Japanese reasserted their dominance of a sport that was once little more than a parlor pastime for upper-class Englishmen. They have been building up their skill ever since Professor Seizo Tsuboi brought the game home from England in 1902. Now, from Hokkaido to Kyushu, every community has its table-tennis center, and it is practically a national game.

Japan was so pleased at being allowed to hold this year's championship, that the government issued a special ten-yen (3-c-) stamp. When the Swaythling Cup winners were awarded their prize, Captain Ichiro Ogimura took a small snapshot from his pocket and held it in front of the silver trophy. It was a picture of Kichiji Tamasu, 21-year-old team star, who died of a heart attack last January. Said Ogimura with due solemnity: "I thought he should know we won."

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