When most people think of badminton, they imagine a family casually hitting a plastic shuttlecock (“birdy”) in their backyard. While this is not too far from how badminton originated hundreds of years ago, it does not paint an accurate picture of the sport at a high level. In no other sport is a feathered shuttlecock smashed at speeds in excess of 330 km/h (200+ mph). Now, imagine diving across the court to return a smash this fast. It’s definitely not a fun time in your backyard.
Here are some random facts about badminton:
-The fastest smash recorded in singles competition is 305 km/h (190 mph) by Taufik Hidayat of Indonesia.
-The fastest smash recorded in doubles competition is 332 km/h (206 mph) by Fu Haifeng of China.
-Badminton is the second most popular sport in the world, after soccer
-More than 1.1 billion people watched the 1992 Olympic Badminton competition on television
-The best shuttlecocks are made from the feathers from the left wing of a goose
-A badminton player can cover more than 2 km in just one match
The speed and the stamina required for badminton are far greater than for any other racket sport. 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.
Sources:
http://www.worldbadminton.com/badfacts.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badminton
http://www.badminton-information.com/facts-about-badminton.html