Olympic sport Jeu de Paume

Sport

Jeu de Paume

Kind of sport

Summersport

Old sport

Yes

Description

This discipline was on the 1908 Olympic programme.
Both table-tennis and tennis probably find their origin in jeu de paume. During the Middle Ages it was a kind of hand-ball in which a ball must be placed in a certain bay either with a paddle or the palm of the hand (paume = palm of the hand). In the nineteenth century a form of this game was developed which was played on a table. During the beginning of this century, the rubber covered paddle, which we now use for table-tennis, was introduced.