You Think you know a lot about badminton? [font=Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow]SOME THOUGHTS:[/font] I am not an expert, but I know a good thing when I see one. For the layman, badminton may seem a very slow sport, just because they have never witnessed the sport being played by seasoned athletes. If your impression of badminton is one of a sport that requires no special physical needs, then read on. Soon you will change your mind. SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT BADMINTON? Most people have seen badminton in one form or another and consequently think they know badminton. However badminton may not be quite what you imagine. Here are a few common questions and answers regarding badminton. IS BADMINTON THAT GAME WE ALL PLAY AT FAMILY PICKNICS AND IN THE BACKYARD? The backyard/picnic version of badminton is one type of badminton, but that is more like playing basketball in the driveway with a junior-sized ball and hoop. Badminton as a sport, the REAL BADMINTON, is played indoors with high-tech equipment. Modern racquets are complex alloys of carbon graphite, boron, ceramic, aluminium and steel in various proportions. These racquets are very light, less than 3.5 ounces and can be strung very tightly. Also the shuttlecock is made of feathers, not plastic, and weighs between 4.74 and 5.50 grams. Shuttles cost from US to US for a dozen and last about one game, at the most. The net is five feet high, not the height of a volleyball net. EVEN SO IT IS STIL PRETTY SLOW, ISN'T IT? To play competitive badminton you need explosiveness, lightning quick reflexes and rapid hand-eye coordination. Why you ask? Well the shuttlecock has been clocked in excess of 205 mph (NO this is not a misprint; Vic Braden who is very well-known for his coaching and research work on tennis did the measuring. Boy, was he surprised). That's faster than the fastest tennis serve, and occurs regularly during rallies at the top level. Add onto this the fact that in doubles games there are often 40 or 50 shots in 20 seconds you can see that the first sentence was no exaggeration. WHAT SORT OF ACTION DO YOU SEE IN BADMINTON? A badminton match consists of constant highly concentrated action; running, jumping, twisting, stretching, running backwards, throwing and striking. In a typical match the players cover every inch of the court and run more than one mile. YEAH, RIGHT. HOW ABOUT SOME STATISTICS? OK then. Lets compare a Wimbledon final to a world championship final in badminton. The Wimbledon final lasted 198 minutes, the badminton final 76 minutes. Doesn't look good for badminton right? WRONG! The actual amount of time the ball or shuttlecock were in play were 18 minutes and 37 minutes respectively. Breaking it down further to the number of shots played (1 004 to 1 972) and assuming 22 feet travelled per shot per player we find that the tennis player covered about 2 miles, and the badminton player 4 miles. So the badminton player ran TWICE as far in under half the time. This just goes to show how tough badminton is. Tennis is a great game and most people understand the athletic endeavours involved in playing at the top level. From this example we can see that badminton athletes need to be in world-class condition. GOT ANY MORE STATS? Most certainly have; according to scientific experts (Department of Physical Education at Baylor University) badminton is one of the finest conditioning game activities. During a typical 3 game match, lasting 45 minutes the shuttle will be in play for 20 minutes. In this time the player will make at least 350 90-degree changes of direction or more and strike the shuttle about 400 times. About 150 of these stokes will be full arm swings (with the racquet, of course). Major league pitchers frequently have less arm swings than this in a game. Pulse rate can increase from 72 to 125 for a person in normal condition. OK, I'M CONVINCED BADMINTON IS A TOUGH SPORT BUT ISN'T IT PRETTY UNPOPULAR? Not at all! Whilst badminton is a minority sport in some countries, it is widely played in Britain, Denmark, Sweden, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea and several other countries. Britain alone has 4 million players, about 8% of the population. As a spectator sport it is very popular in the Far East. The badminton events at the Seoul Olympics were among the first to sell out, despite it only being a demonstration sport. The estimated audience for the 92 and 96 Olympic finals ran into the hundreds of millions, up to 1.1 BILLION in total.[font=Arial,Helvetica,adobe-helvetica,Arial Narrow] [/font] Source: Cyprus Badminton Federation
This article should be posted in all forums across the world to fix the image of badminton. Prehaps with some updated stats.
Yeah, eBay, Inc should be the first stop for this. They still list badminton as "backyard sports" category.
Yes, but I think that's more due to volume of sales. Way back in the day, softball stuff was mixed with baseball stuff. The softball equipments sales on eBay started to go crazy and then eBay made a separate category for softball.
Source: Cyprus Badminton Federation. Hmmm, what a strange source. Wonder if they actually wrote this or got it off another source–sounds like the latter. Well, let's see if Cyprus is becomes the next badminton power!
lol i was thinking along the same lines, well not only in the backyard. I'll have to have one inside to thats if i have a big enough house or enough room for an extension although it might set me back a few grand...oh well if im rich enough.
Wonder if they actually wrote this or got it off another source–sounds like the latter. you are right! madbad I have seen the stats before, it was in different format. I will post it if I can find the source.
I started playing badminton about 2 yrs back. The first time I went to the court I told my friends that I just came for fun and this slow game with no exercise did not intrest me. I was addicted to the game int he first few times that I played it. never looked back since. I have given up all other games (Squash, hockey, cricket, Table tennis, football) and now focus completely on badminton. However that having said. You need the right opponents to really give you a good work out. That dependency is lesser in other sports.
EBay doesn't care if Badminton is world class, it only cares if Badminton equipment and accessories can generate lots of revenue for them.
Now, don't you think that if EBay actually did some research on badminton and categorized it properly, they would generate EVEN MORE revenue?
Naw, eBay is all about numbers. If Badminton equipment sales went through the roof such as watch or computer sales, Badminton would definitely have its only category.
like the sideks? honestly, it'll be good if the whole world can read this post and realise how great badminton really is
Statistics or not, some people just want to make things appear "easy and boring" cos THEY CAN"T DO IT
That's true. But, at least in badminton you just need to find 1 other decent player. The hardest sport that I've been involved in that depend so much on people around you to get a good game going is volleyball. If you've players who can't pass, set, smash, block, dig properly, the game becomes very stupid very quickly because you can't get rallies going. Even if you play 4-a-side, you'd still need to find 7 other good players. Forget about playing beach-pro-style 2-a-side. That's even more difficult to do and you'd still need to find 3 other players. However, if you do get a good game going, the feeling is out of this world. But, I digress.
