Badminton

Badminton players at the London 2012 Olympic Games will need lightning-fast reactions if they’re to keep up with shuttlecocks travelling at speeds in excess of 400km/h.

During the 19th century, British military officers in the Indian town of Poona added a net to the ancient game of battledore (meaning ‘bat’) and shuttlecock, and named this new game after the town.

The sport of Poona was eventually brought back home by the officers, and was played at the Duke of Beaufort’s Gloucestershire residence in 1873. The residence was (and is still) called Badminton House, which is how this thrilling sport got the name used today.

The basics

Badminton is played on a rectangular court split in half by a central net, with singles and doubles events on the Olympic Games programme. Olympic shuttlecocks weigh between 4.74 grams and 5.5g and contain 16 feathers, each plucked from the left wing of a goose. They can travel at speeds in excess of 400km/h.

Matches are played over the best of three games, and each game is won by the first player or doubles pair to reach 21 points by a margin of two clear points. However, if the score reaches 29-29, the winner of the next point wins the game.

At London 2012, there will be five medal events: men’s and women’s Singles, men’s and women’s Doubles, and Mixed Doubles. All events will begin with a preliminary stage: the competitors will be divided into groups, and each player and doubles pair will play everyone else in their group.

The best players and doubles pairs from this stage (16 in each Singles event, eight pairs in each Doubles event) will qualify for the knockout stage of the competition, which will eventually decide the winners of the medals.

Olympic Badminton, past and present

One of the most dynamic Olympic sports, Badminton made its full Olympic debut at Barcelona 1992. Although the rules of the modern sport were developed in England, Asian countries now dominate: China, Indonesia and South Korea have won 23 of the 24 gold medals awarded since the sport’s first appearance at the Games.

The London 2012 Badminton competition will be held at Wembley Arena, on a site that has hosted major events ever since the British Empire Exhibition opened there in 1924.

Badminton
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