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Friday 13 January 2012

Badminton

Badminton came from a child's game called battledore and shuttlecock, in which two players hit a feathered shuttlecock back and forth with tiny rackets. Some form of the sport was played long ago in ancient Greece and Egypt.

Shuttlecock became a most fashionable pastime in England during the reign of James I (1603-1625) so much so that a writer could say, "to play Shuttlecok methinkes is the game now."

English army officers, serving in India in the 1860s, were very much taken by a game, which was similar, and yet far superior, to shuttlecock, known as Poona. They took it home, together with some of the Indian equipment, chiefly shuttlecocks. In 1873 it was played at a party given by the duke of Beaufort at Badminton House, his estate, and became known as "the Badminton game."


As early as 1878 there was a Badminton Club in New York with the membership consisting of men and 'good-looking' single girls.

Badminton was first admitted as an Olympic sport in the 1992 summer games in Barcelona, Spain

Today, badminton is played by two or four players, either indoors or outdoors, on a marked-out area 44 ft (13.41 m) long by 20 ft (6.10 m) wide for the four-player and 17 ft (5.18 m) wide for the two-player game. Across the middle of the court a net is fixed, with the top edge 5 ft (1.52 m) from the ground at the center and 5 ft 1 in. (1.55 m) at the posts. 

The fastest moving object hit by a player in any sport is the badminton shuttlecock. It can easily reach speeds of 112 mph (180 km/h) during a match.

Shuttlecocks used in professional badminton are made of stabilizing feathers from the left wing of a goose. Feathers from the right wing make them spin the wrong way.


Malaysian badminton player Tan Boon heong holds the record for the fastest ever shot made in badminton with a 306 mph smash.

The longest badminton match, ever played, lasted 161 minutes. In the 2016 Badminton Asian Championships women's doubles semi-finals Japan's Kurumi Yonao and Naoko Fukuman defeated Indonesia's Greysia Polii and Nitya Krishinda Maheswari 13-21, 21-19, 24-22  in 161 minutes.

Sources Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia © 1998 The Learning Company, Inc, Funk & Wagnells Encyclopedia

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