The above is from the excellent badminton site maintained by Vancouverite Francois Cleroux. http://www.southsidebadminton.com/

from Francois site: Eventual gold medal winner Susi Sasanti serves at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games Shaun Botterill / Allsport In India, a game closer to modern badminton, poona, had evolved by the mid-19th century. While British army officers stationed there were learning the game, the Duke of Beauford was introducing it to royal society at his country estate, Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England. Within four years, the Bath Badminton Club had formed, and a new version of the game played there laid the basis for today's rules. The game remained a genteel affair for society's elite until the end of the century. Then, as badminton associations formed in England, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and France, a more vigorous game began to spread. The International Badminton Federation (IBF) was born in 1934, with a membership of nine countries ranging from the Netherlands to Canada, and with India, Australia and the United States joining soon after. In 1935, the American Badminton Association (ABA) was founded and it conducted the first national championship tournament on April 1, 1937. The International Badminton Federation, founded in 1934, planned to hold the first world championship tournament in 1939, but it was canceled because of World War II and didn't take place until 1949. World individual championships are now held in odd-numbered years, team championships in even-numbered years. The game reached the Olympic stage as a demonstration sport at the 1972 Munich Games. It returned as an exhibition sport in Seoul in 1988, then was accepted to full medal status in 1992 at Barcelona with singles and doubles competition for men and women. The mixed doubles event was added in 1996. Badminton also became a Pan-American Games sport in 1995. The Asians were ready and waiting to dominate when the game came back to them. Since 1934, China and Indonesia have won 70 per cent of all IBF titles � even with 131 countries now belonging to the federation. By then, it was too late for China's Li Lingwei and Han Aiping. During the 1980s, they had won six women's World Cups, six Grand Prix singles titles and 63 championships between them. It also was too late for Denmark's Morten Frost, who won more than 70 major men's titles during the '80s. Nonetheless, they had shown the way for their compatriots. Badminton became a professional sport in the 1980s, when the IBF established the World Grand Prix Circuit. The U. S. Open, which offers $200,000 in prize money, is the highest paying tournament on the tour. The Grand Prix Finals tournament has a total purse of $350,000. The ABA was renamed the U. S. Badminton Association in 1978. In 1989, the organization became a full-fledged member of the U. S. Olympic Committee. It has about 2,700 members, but more than 1 million Americans play badminton recreationally at least 25 times a year, according to a recent study. American players were among the world's best until the late 1960s. Perhaps the greatest of all was Judy Devlin Hashman, a native of Manitoba. She won more than 50 major championships from 1954 through 1967, including 12 U. S. national titles and 10 All-England championships. At the 1996 Atlanta Games, China tied for the medal lead as Asian athletes won 14 of the 15 medals. The only non-Asian was another Dane, Poul-Erik Hoyer-Larsen, who shocked the field with a gold medal in men's singles. While Asian nations still dominate Olympic badminton, Demark and Great Britain could challenge their reign in Sydney. After all these years, badminton probably is not far removed from its ancient predecessors, nor from the game of elite society in the mid-1800s � except for the speed of the game. The fastest smash recorded, by Great Britain's Simon Archer, was clocked at 260 kilometers per hour.

Great game Terry. I used to play a lot. It's still one of the sports I enjoy the most.

August 19th, 2004 Chinese mixed doubles pair, Zhang Jun and Gao Ling, successfully defended their 2000 Olympic title today, and in the process won China's second badminton gold of the day. For most of us, badminton is thought of as a backyard sport like croquet, or ping pong, but this fast paced game with roots in China has been an Olympic sport since 1992. Find out how the game is scored, what makes it so fun to watch, and why spectators might be a little uncomfortable watching it. It's an indoor game, a lot like volleyball or tennis. "Games start with a serve, and only the serving side can score." And they're very picky about the serve. First of all, it's always underhand. "The contact point must be below the waist." The head of the racquet must stay below the hand. Qingyi Zheng Zen is a former Chinese national referee for badminton who now teaches physical education at UNLV. He agreed to teach us a little bit about the sport. "You have to make it this way, don't turn back." Or at least he tried. In the Olympics, you'll see singles and doubles badminton. It's a best of three games set up. The men's singles game will be a 15 point game, the women will play to 11, but the games can last a long time. "They can play for about maybe two hours for three games." And Zen says the intensity of the game is only second to soccer. You need three basic skills to play badminton: speed, endurance, and agility. And, of course, there's the crowd pleaser, the smash, as Zen demonstrates. "You serve as high as you can. This is smash." The only thing the crowd won't be pleased about is a a lack of air conditioning during matches. "The air current will be very much affecting the flying of the shuttlecock." Air current won't make much of a difference for us novices, though. Another thing about badminton that might surprise you is the height of the net. It's only five feet high. And in the Olympics, the shuttlecock is actually made with real feathers, not the plastic ones we use in our backyards. So how is the US team looking for this event? Qingyi says it's made up of former Chinese players, so they should do pretty well, but as of right now the US does not have a medal in badminton. China has three, while Great Britain, The Netherlands and Denmark each have one. http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=2198212&nav=15MVQ3s5