The Background of Badminton
Badminton is a stick sport where two or four people try to hit a shuttlecock or “birdie” over a high net. The game was first played in India in the middle of the 18th century. It was called Poona.
Only around the middle of the 1960s did people try to add Badminton to the Olympics.
The sport became very famous quickly, and in 1877, the Bath Badminton Club made the first set of written rules. After 16 years, the Badminton Federation of England was made, and the first All-England Championships were held in 1899.
Is Badminton an Olympic Sport?
Badminton is a sport at the Olympics. Badminton was played for the first time at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany as a showcase sport.
Then, it was a demo sport at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, in 1988. At the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, in 1992, it became a full medal sport. Since then, Badminton has often been played at the Olympics. There are singles and doubles events for both men and women and a mixed pairs event.
Badminton did not start as the game we know today. Battledore and shuttlecock was the game that came before it. It was played by people who lived in Eurasia long ago. It was a lot like Badminton, where two people hit a shuttlecock back and forth with two bats.
The shuttlecock was usually made of cork and feathers. The point was to keep the shuttlecock from falling.
National teams that do well & Succeed
Many countries worldwide play Badminton, and there have been a lot of great national teams in the sport. Over the past few decades, Badminton has changed a lot in terms of how competitive it is between countries and how good it is. Asian countries have ruled the badminton world ever since it started, with China being the most powerful.
China has been winning a lot of medals at the Summer Olympics. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, China was the only country to win all awards. Regarding Asia being the best at Badminton, not much has changed. China, Japan, Indonesia, and Korea, all Asian countries, are the best at Badminton.
