How is it August already? That seems way too fast. July flew by. In fact, we’re now less than a year away from the 2012 Olympics in London.

Table Tennis is one of 26 sports that will be featured at the 2012 Games (since table tennis has become an Olympic sport, China has won 20 out of 24 available medals). From Saturday July 28th to Wednesday August 8th, 172 table tennis players (both male and female) will compete in a total of four medal events. The Olympic committee expects “power, subtlety and lightning-fast reflexes” from the players as they face off at the ExCeL Center.

But before you look too far ahead, let’s take a look at The Month That Was July.

The Brawlers:

1. We debuted the Ping Pong Diplomacy Paddle to celebrate the 40th Anniversary
2. Harry Potter Ping Pong Week was a smash: our six part series featured tales of Emma Watson’s dominance, Daniel Radcliffe’s passion for beating her, a corn maze, golden snitch pong, mind control, and a missing passage from the epic books
3. Amy Winehouse passed away but had a ping pong past
4. The US Women’s World Cup Team had a great run, but their ping pong tournament was more impressive
5. The story of the Revolutionary Brawl is the story of American Independence you’ve never heard before
6. A new way to play ping pong on your own

The Rest of July:

• You may not have learned about haboobs in health class but Phoenix has big ones
• The New Zealand ping pong scene was led by, well, you can read for yourself
• An 85 year old woman shows us that true table tennis skills don’t begin until 60
• TTN’s Cooper joined Bob “Kingpin” Eres on an episode of Pro Sports Broadcasting
• Throwback: In honor of the final NASA shuttle launch, check out what ping pong balls look like in zero gravity
• Kevin Durant discovered ping pong in Hong Kong
• Is the table tennis world about to get even more gigantnormous? Sydney City Pong thinks so
• San Francisco is hosting a cool outdoor tournament in a few months
• World Record Holder Nick Anderson is rocking a Starry Starry Paddle
• It was Nelson Mandela’s birthday, he may have celebrated with table tennis
• You can please employees with ping pong
• Yao Ming retired from basketball, is a career in pong in hist future?
• You should play table tennis in a pool
• Justin Timberlake vs. Regis Philbin, this time it’s personal
• Royal Pains gave us a quick glimpse at prison ping pong
• You can take a bite out of Marty Reisman thanks to Ducks Cakery
• The NFL Lockout is over, what does this mean for ping pong?
• The MLB trade deadline is Sunday so we checked in on some of the ping pong stories this year

Thanks for supporting Table Tennis Nation, we have some giveaways coming up this month, so make sure to like us on facebook and follow us on twitter to make sure you get in on the action.