The shuttlecocks were coated with India rubber and, in outdoor play, sometimes weighted with lead. Initially, the sport was played with sides ranging from 1 to 4 players, but it was quickly established that games between two or four competitors worked the best. By 1875, officers returning home had started a badminton club in Folkestone. Ball badminton, a form of the game played with a wool ball instead of a shuttlecock, was being played in Thanjavur as early as the 1850s and was at first played interchangeably with badminton by the British, the woollen ball being preferred in windy or wet weather.Įarly on, the game was also known as Poona or Poonah after the garrison town of Poona (Pune), where it was particularly popular and where the first rules for the game were drawn up in 1873. The game originally developed in India among the British expatriates, where it was very popular by the 1870s. An 1863 article in The Cornhill Magazine describes badminton as 'battledore and shuttlecock played with sides, across a string suspended some five feet from the ground'. As early as 1860, a London toy dealer named Isaac Spratt published a booklet entitled Badminton Battledore – A New Game, but no copy is known to have survived. The name derives from the Duke of Beaufort's Badminton House in Gloucestershire, but why or when remains unclear. ('Battledore' was an older term for 'racquet'.) Its exact origin remains obscure. Games employing shuttlecocks have been played for centuries across Eurasia, but the modern game of badminton developed in the mid-19th century among the expatriate officers of British India as a variant of the earlier game of battledore and shuttlecock. An 1854 depiction of battledore and shuttlecock by John Leech. History An 1804 depiction of battledore and shuttlecock. It is also a technical sport, requiring good motor coordination and the development of sophisticated racquet movements.

At high levels of play, the sport demands excellent fitness: players require aerobic stamina, agility, strength, speed, and precision. In 1992, badminton debuted as a Summer Olympic sport with four events: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, and women's doubles mixed doubles was added four years later. European play came to be dominated by Denmark but the game has become very popular in Asia, with recent competitions dominated by China. The game developed in British India from the earlier game of battledore and shuttlecock. The flight of the shuttlecock gives the sport its distinctive nature. Shuttlecocks also have a high top speed compared to the balls in other racquet sports. In particular, the feathers create much higher drag, causing the shuttlecock to decelerate more rapidly. The shuttlecock is a feathered or (in informal matches) plastic projectile that flies differently from the balls used in many other sports. Play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor or ground, or if a fault has been called by the umpire, service judge, or (in their absence) the opposing side. Points are scored by striking the shuttlecock with the racquet and landing it within the other team's half of the court.Įach side may only strike the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net. Badminton is often played as a casual outdoor activity in a yard or on a beach formal games are played on a rectangular indoor court.

Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are 'singles' (with one player per side) and 'doubles' (with two players per side). Two Chinese pairs compete in the mixed doubles gold medal match of the 2012 Olympicsīadminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net.

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