Badminton is one of many sports which is played with a racket where the players hit a shuttle over a net inside a delimited court. Badminton has 3 categories:

1. Single

2. Doubles

3. Mixt doubles

Badminton can be played both inside and outside. Usually outside it is played for fun, in family. Trainings for those who practice in a regular basis are done in sport halls.

Badminton origin

Badminton is played for the first time over 2000 years ago in Eurasia countries: Egipt, China, India and Japan, but also in Greece and was played with a wooden racket  (“battledore”)  and a shuttle.

Starting from year 1600 badminton was played  between 2 players, which hit with a wooden racket a shuttle to each other, until the shuttle hits the ground. It was considered an elite game in Europe, including in England.

Today,  you could see a similar game in Japan, called  Hanetsuki. It is a very popular game which is played  in the Christmas Eve, with a wooden racket (‘’hagoita’’)  and a shuttle (“hane”).

The development of Badminton

Due to the book “A Brief History of Badminton from 1870 to 1949” written by Betty Uber, modern badminton was made by military men – british officers in 1850s in British India, when a net was added to this game, and due to the fact that it was very popular in Poona city, was given the name of this game – Poona.

In that period, when the weather was windy and wet, instead of the feather shuttle a linen ball was preffered, thus was played by majority of wealthy people and the name of the game became “Ball badminton” .

In midle 1870s, british officers that where retired has brought this game from India to the places where they lived, in England, thus badminton became shortly a very popular game.

In 1873 Duce du Beaufort introduces badminton in his place of origin, “Badminton House” in Gloucestershire, and from that time further this sport is called Badminton.

In 1972, Badminton was represented as a demonstrative sport in the Olympic Games in Munchen. In 1992 at Olympic Games in Barcelona badminton became officially Olympic game. At that edition was included only singles and doubles, without mixt doubles category.

In 1996, mixt doubles was included for the first time at the Olympic Games Atlanta, USA. Until nowadays, Badminton is the only sport to have mixt doubles as a sport category at the Olympic Games.

From 1992 Olympic Games the following countries won medals: Indonesia, Denmark, China, South Correa, Japan and Spain.

Source: https://badmintonprofessor.com/