Olympus

Absolutely thrilled with the Olympus Paddle! This Olympus has standout power and pop while maintaining an exceptionally soft feel for a 14mm paddle. The powerful and poppy nature along with the generous sweetspot allows me to play aggressively from all over the court.

What truly sets this paddle apart is its unique combination of power and forgiveness. It offers the best of both worlds: the pop to deliver powerful counters and the finesse to execute drops and resets.

I've played with most of the paddles from the major brands, and I can say this paddle changes the game.

I've been playing with the Olympus for a few months now and the thing that stood out to me are the counters. Anyone speeding up the ball at me will think twice which opens up the rest of my game at the kitchen line. The 14mm feels closer to a 16mm when dinking and dropping, and resets off the bounce are easy.

I'm still playing around with my weight distribution and placement but out of the box, this paddle is extremely fun to play with and will be my main for a long time.

This paddle is excellent and well-balanced! You don’t need to change your swing to get power with it. It has great control and a large sweet spot for its 14mm thickness. It's very light to start with, and you can add some weight if needed without it feeling heavy. If you want power without losing control or changing your game, this is the right choice! You can get a lower price with "SPARTUS" code.

This paddle is a fantastic blend of power and control. It took me a few weeks to get used to the pop and to feel the paddle out for soft play, but now it's my main. The spin is top notch, and has juiced up my ability to gain a strong advantage off of serve (without launching a lot of balls out, which was the problem I ran into with the Gearbox PPE). Adding some weight at 4 and 8 has smoothed out the sweet spot and helped make the paddle a bit softer for drops and resets. All in all, Spartus has delivered another winner - if you like the Apollo but are looking for a bit more power to deal with the gen3 level paddles, this is the right buy for you.

It's also a great conversation starter as many have asked about and tried the paddle over the last few weeks when it wasn't publicly released yet.

If this review was helpful, you can get 10% off your purchase with my affiliate link: https://gospartus.com?sca_ref=6603836.2IiXaaD4pI or use coupon code "PICKLE SPARTUS DISCOUNT"

I think a solid review should try to include what the manufacturer was trying to accomplish with a particular paddle, rather than just run the metrics against other paddles.
I am guessing Spartus is trying to provide a fairly powerful and poppy paddle, yet not without giving up on swing weight and manuverability. So my review is based on this assumption.

I think twist weight is great, but the industry is discovering that high twist weight comes with a cost. I believe at first, most thought the higher the better. When the twist weight becomes "too high" (perhaps hard to find a consensus definition), yes, the paddles gains in sweet spot, stability, and control, but sacrifices maneuverability, particularly with the shot or movement of wrist rolls and flips. So there is a balance if you will, or a limit on the twist weight if a player has this shot in their arsenal and is an important part of their game. I don't believe all the manufacturers, reviewers, coaches, and players have figured this out yet.

This is perhaps the one negative of the Apollo. I absolutely love the twist weight for the sweet spot, stability, and control it brings. The low swing weight allows for fast maneuverability EXCEPT for the movement of the flips and rolls as described above. I suspect a twist weight of somewhere around 6.75-7.0 may be an answer for this. Of course then you give up some sweet spot, stability, etc. Again- there is a balance somewhere, but not for every player. Many players don't have this shot and don't ever plan to learn it. So in that case, they likely would benefit from as high of a twist weight as they can get.

This is good background for my Olympus review. The Olympus comes a lot closer to this balance in my opinion. For me it is maneuverable enough for all the quick movements needed at the NVZ. It may not have the amazing level of control as the Apollo, but for its shape (dimensions) and being a 14mm, I think it has excellent control. Any decent player will be able to settle into it and find the control they need.
On power and pop, they are both good, but I think in order to access its power one has to swing pretty hard in order to engage the function of the core. I don't believe the average player will have the strength to do this. I can, but I have to think about it and be sure I execute when needing the power. There are many paddles where the power and pop and just there and don't require a minimum level of force and/or torque to access. But it's there, and I can find it, and I like it.

A part of me would like to see a little more length for whip/leverage, but I get that this would add weight, and more importantly push the weight farther up the paddle where it could begin to get head-heavy which I don't think was wanted with the Olympus. So if there wasn't a way to avoid this, then I am fine with the length.

Handle length and circumference is good and accommodates those with two-handed backhands without getting up to 6" where for those diehard two-handers who may like this, that length also comes with some drawbacks. Perhaps in the future you will be able to offer say a 4.75" handle length, and then a paddle iteration with a full 6" handle. But I realize that you must be sure the demand is there in order to add that in production.

I am not jazzed with the muted gold/mustard color, but I try not to allow the looks and/or the colors of a paddle influence me. For many, this is a beauty contest, but not for me. If it's a great paddle, who cares about the colors, graphics, etc.

So I think it is a winner and the more I play with it, they more it may become my main above the Apollo. I look forward to the top reviewers doing a full review on the Olympus to see what they say.

I have offered this before, but if there is anyway I can be helpful to make Spartus more relevant, improve market share, consult on new paddle ideas, test paddles, etc. please let me know.
David DeCarlo,
571.237.2874