Undeniable Facts Of Badminton

by Abdul Rauf Liaqat
(Islamabad, Pakistan)

Every sport in the world have many of it’s interesting facts. It might be historical facts, might be funny facts of that very sport or may be undeniable facts of the game you play. There must be several things that you don't know about your game. So let’s share and spread some of the facts of Badminton.

Game Demands:-

Badminton at the top level is an extremely physically demanding game requiring strength endurance, muscular power, agility, speed endurance, anaerobic power and a capacity game to accelerate / decelerate.

Interesting Facts:-

•Badminton is one the world's fastest racket sports, requiring quick reflexes and superb conditioning. It's officially the fastest racket sport in the world. The shuttle is smashed around the court at speeds of up to 300km/hour.

•Badminton claims to be the second most-popular participation sport in the world. Only Soccer beats it.

•A 1993 study revealed that more than 1.2 million Americans play badminton at least 25 times a year, 760,000 Americans call badminton their favorite sport, and more than 11.2 million Americans played the sport at least once during the year.

Internationally, more than 1.1 billion people watched the 1992 Olympic badminton competition on television.

•A badminton player can cover more than 2 km in just one match.

•A shuttlecock weighs between 4.74 and 5.50 grams.

•The best shuttles are made from the feathers from the left wing of a goose.

•16 feathers are used to make a shuttle.

•The biggest shuttle in the world can be found on the lawns of the Kansas City Museum 48 times larger than the real thing, 18 feet tall and weighing 2500 kilo.

•It is an American, Judy Hashman, who holds the record number of All-England titles 17 in total.

•Badminton's first Olympics was in 1992.

•The two most successful badminton countries are China and Indonesia which between them have won 70% of all BWF events.

•Its Olympic debut was in 1992 in Barcelona.
Since 1992 Asian players have won 42 of the 46 Olympic medals.


•During an average top-level match ten shuttles are used with players hitting it roughly 400 times each.

•The record for the shortest match is Six minutes. Ra Kyung-min (South Korea) and Julia Mann (England) hold the record.

•Peter Rasmussen (Denmark) and Sun Jun (China) hold the record for the longest match - 124 minutes.

•In Malaysia and Indonesia crowds of up to 15,000 people regularly fill the stands to cheer on their heroes.

•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; other holders are China, Indonesia, Japan and more recently South Korea.

•The Chinese originally played a version of badminton called Ti Zian Ji. They didn't use racquets though, they used their feet.

•Famous personalities who play badminton include Paul Newman, Diego Maradonna and Nick Faldo.

Tennis vs. Badminton:-

•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.

Content Source:-
1) Worldbadminton.com
2) Fernandosbadminton.com

Badminton Information on Facebook