"When I was in third grade, all I used to do was sniff glue through a tube and play Rubik's cube," claimed Eminem on the 2000 song "Drug Ballad." While he may have shared one particular obsession with Hugo Calderano, the Brazilian Olympian was likely never so monomaniacal. In fact, there doesn't seem to be much the 23-year-old table tennis ace hasn't mastered. "Table tennis is not only just practicing and playing many hours behind the table," says Calderano, the first Latin American player to crack the ITTF top ten. "You can improve doing many different things. You can learn different things and grow as a human being outside of table tennis." There are many videos of Calderano demonstrating his skills at basketball, soccer, gymnastics, volleyball, and a seemingly endless array of physical activities. When it appears he is finally going to sit down, catch his breath and relax with a leisurely pastime like a Rubik's cube, he instead sets a timer and solves all six sides perfectly in less than twenty seconds. "I play other sports, I solve Rubik's Cubes, I like to talk about different subjects and learn about some different things so that table tennis is not the only topic in my life," he explains. This mental cross-training has allowed Calderano to hold his own going toe-to-toe with the best in the world. After cracking the top ten in 2018, he has maintained the Dave Letterman-worthy status ever since. On the table, Calderano is all business, his face contorted in concentration and exertion. Away from work, however, he beams with a boyish grin, and practically bounces around with child-like energy. He credits his buoyant attitude for getting his through the tough times which all athletes face. "I think many times when I'm injured, I'm able to take a distance from just playing table tennis and I actually come back many times even stronger than I was before. It's always important to have this positive mindset," he says. "Table tennis is a very dynamic sport," continues Calderano. "You need to be very fast, very good physically but also very strong mentally. Table tennis for me is like a mental war... like to play chess running 100 meters." No less an authority on puzzles than New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz also attests to the synergistic benefits of brain-training and table tennis. "Both puzzles and table tennis are brain games," says Shortz. "Table tennis tends to attract smart people. You have to have something on the ball, so to speak, to learn the game and play well." Fans of wordplay have their hands full deciphering Shortz's puzzles and Eminem's rhymes. The world's top table tennis players, however, are busy trying to outwit the Brazilian polymath. How to beat Hugo Calderano? Looks like that's the real puzzle.

More at Olympic Channel