Why Is Your Glue Water-Based Today? The "Speed Glue" Crisis

If you’re a veteran player, you probably remember the smell. A strong, chemical smell that took over every competition hall. If you’re a newer player, maybe you’ve heard people talk with nostalgia about the “click”, the iconic sound the racket made in the 80s and 90s.

That smell and that sound came from the same place: “speed glue”. For decades, it was the elite’s secret for generating absurd speed and spin. But it was also at the center of a health crisis that forced table tennis to change forever.

To understand why your TENSOR rubber is so elastic and why your glue is water-based today, we need to tell this story. Our analysis is largely based on a fantastic historical article by Jens Fellke, the author of the Jan-Ove Waldner biography (“When the Feeling Decides”). In a report for USA Table Tennis Magazine (Mar/Apr 2009), he detailed this saga.

Chapter 1: the magical “click” (the discovery)

The story begins by accident in the 70s with the Hungarian player Tibor Klampar. During a practice session, frustrated with his game, he peeled off his rubber and glued on a new one. He didn’t like it, peeled it off again and re-glued the original. Suddenly, he heard a “click”.

Klampar realized that his original rubber was suddenly much faster and had more spin. He had found the jackpot: applying fresh glue with volatile solvents (VOCs) before playing “supercharged” the rubber. The game became faster and more aggressive, allowing the famous topspin-against-topspin rallies with players meters away from the table.

Chapter 2: the hysteria and the dark side

Klampar kept his secret for more than a year. But once it was discovered, the table tennis world changed. Gluing became a “hysteria”.

The ritual was to apply coat after coat of glue before every practice and every match, sometimes six times a day. Players traveled with cans of highly flammable glue smuggled in their suitcases.

The legendary Stellan Bengtsson had a famous story: he told of parents arriving to pick up their beginner kids at the club and seeing the main team’s players wearing gas masks, thinking they had walked into a “chemical warfare exercise”. The sport’s image was being seriously damaged.

Chapter 3: the ban and the modern era

The ITTF tried to ban speed glue in 1993, but failed. Pressure from players and the lack of a reliable test made the federation back down.

However, the pressure for a “green” and safe sport continued. In 2004, the ITTF voted for a definitive ban on all solvents (VOCs), a rule that took effect on September 1, 2008, right after the Beijing Olympics.

Chapter 4: the solutions (today’s game)

The ban created a vacuum. How do you get speed without speed glue? The industry, which was already preparing for this, answered with two innovations that define today’s game:

1. “Tensioned” rubbers (TENSOR / High Tension): manufacturers such as ESN (with TENSOR technology) and Butterfly (High Tension) figured out how to put the “spring effect” in from the factory, inside the rubber. They come “supercharged” permanently and safely.
2. VOC-Free glues (water-based): the new glues, safe and approved by the ITTF, were created. They are 100% water-based and their job is no longer to “supercharge”, but to fix the tensioned rubber to the blade as efficiently as possible.

360TT expert analysis

The speed glue era was exciting, but it was a “chemical war” that fortunately ended. It changed the game forever, forcing the sport to become faster and more athletic.

It’s even a little ironic to look at how the market has evolved. In the 90s, many of us used classic rubbers like the Yasaka Mark V with a 2.5mm sponge. With speed glue, that sponge swelled and easily reached 2.7mm. Curiously, one of the biggest releases of 2025, the Butterfly Zyre-03, is treated as a major innovation precisely because it has a sponge of… 2.7mm. The sport has come full circle.

Fortunately, today we no longer need gas masks. Performance now comes from the technology built into the rubbers (TENSOR) and from modern glues that, besides being safe and 100% within the rules, also help performance. Solutions like EasyGlue Green and EasyGlue Carbon (with its carbon technology) are the best example of this evolution: maximum performance, with total safety and respect for the current rules.

Now I want to hear from you: did you live through the speed glue era? What is your memory of the “click”? Tell me here in the comments.

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