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Badminton is officially the world’s fastest racqet sport, which requires quick reflexes and superb conditioning. The shuttle when smashed around the court travels at speed in excess of 300 km/hour. Here are 10 facts about badminton that will absolutely blow your mind!
#10 Up to 1873 the sport was known by another name
Originally, badminton was called ‘shuttlecock’.
The Duke of Beaufort used to host parties at his Badminton House in 1873, where his guests were invited to play a game with shuttlecocks, and that is where its official name was born.
#9 The shuttlecock originated from a pen stand
The origin of the shuttlecock is not very clear. However, it is believed that writing feathers were stuck in corks when they were not in use. During dull moments, the ‘pen’ stand would be thrown or whacked around, and that's how it came to be used in the sport.
#8 Badminton was initially played with the players\' feet
A game called Ti Zian Ji was played by the Chinese originally, which is the forerunner of badminton. In this sport, the players used their feet instead of racquets to hit the shuttlecock!
#7 The strings of badminton racquets are made from the stomach linings of cats
While over the years, most of the players have started using synthetic strings, some players still use guts made from the dried stomach lining of animals like cats or cows.
#6 A shuttle is made from the left wing of a goose
The average shuttlecock weighs between 4.74 to 5.5 grams, the best of which are made from the feathers of the left wing of a goose.
16 feathers are used in the manufacture of a shuttle. During a top-level match 10 shuttles are used, with each being hit roughly 400 times.
#5 A shuttlecock that weighs 2,500 kg exists
In Kansas City Museum, the biggest shuttlecock in the world can be found, which is 48 times larger than a normal shuttle. It is 18 feet tall, and weighs 2500 kg!
#4 A badminton match once lasted just 6 minutes
The shortest badminton match ever recorded was at the 1996 Uber Cup in Hong Kong, which lasted all of six minutes! Ra Kyung-min (South Korea) crushed Julia Mann (England) 11-2, 11-1 in that match.
The longest match on the other hand lasted 124 minutes, and was contested between Peter Rasmussen (Denmark) and Sun Jun (China). Rasmussen won that encounter 16-17, 18-13, 15-10.
#3 Badminton is the 2nd most popular sport in the world
It has been claimed that badminton is the second most-popular participation sport in the world, only behind football.
When badminton was first included in the Olympics in 1992, 1.1 billion people watched the badminton competition on television.
#2 The Asian domination of the sport borders on the unreal
Since its inclusion in the Olympics in 1992, Asian players have won a staggering 42 out of the 46 Olympic medals.
The most successful badminton countries in the world are China and Indonesia, who have won 70% of all BWF events between them.
The Thomas Cup, the men's world team championships, has been won by only three countries since it began in 1948 - Malaysia, Indonesia and China.
The only time the Uber Cup, the women's world team championships, was won outside Asia was by the USA in 1957, 1960 and 1963; the other holders are China, Indonesia, Japan and more recently South Korea.
#1 Badminton is a LOT more intense than tennis
Badminton is often referred to as the poor cousin of tennis, but nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, the speed and the stamina required for badminton is far greater than any other racquet sport.
Here's a comparison of badminton vs tennis:
At the 1985 All England (Tennis) Championships, Boris Becker defeated Kevin Curren 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4.
At the 1985 World Badminton Championships in Calgary, Canada, Han Jian of China defeated Morten Frost of Denmark, 14-18, 15-10, 15-8. The following is a statistical comparison of those matches.Time: Tennis - 3 hours and 18 minutes; Badminton - 1 hour and 16 minutes
Ball/shuttle in play: Tennis - 18 minutes; Badminton - 37 minutes
Match Intensity*: Tennis - 9 percent; Badminton - 48 percent
Rallies: Tennis - 299; Badminton - 146
Shots: Tennis - 1,004; Badminton - 1,972
Shots Per Rally: Tennis - 3.4; Badminton - 13.5
Distance Covered: Tennis - 2 miles; Badminton - 4 miles
Note that the badminton players competed for half the time, yet ran twice as far and hit nearly twice as many shots!
*The actual time the ball/shuttle was in flight, divided by the length of the match.
