Badminton is popular all over the world, but especially in Asia. There seems to be a lot of misinformation about the origin of the sport, so I did some research and thought I could try to clear things up. In fact, it is quite a fascinating story.
Many say that the English invented badminton, but we can actually trace it back to around 500 BC. C. in ancient China. There was a game called Ti Jian Zi, which involved a feathered ball, similar to the modern shuttlecock, but no rackets were used. We also know that when Christ was supposedly born, a game called Battledore and Shuttlecock was played in China, Japan and Greece. The game looks a bit more like current badminton, but in fact it was just a paddle and shuttlecock, the idea of the game was to hit the shuttlecock back and forth most of the time.
In the 16th century, badminton had become child’s play, then in the 17th century, the upper class people in Europe had also become fond of the game. However, it was already known by the French name “steering wheel game”.
Meanwhile, a game called Poona was being developed in India that looked a lot like modern sport. British officers stationed in India were drawn to the game and learned the rules, taking them back to England. Therefore, the game was presented to the nobles and the royal society by the Duke of Beauford on his estate in Gloucestershire, England.
The estate was known as Badminton House. While testing the game, the nobles threaded a piece of rope or formed a kind of division between the two players, each trying to move the shuttlecock away from their area. Soon the first “badminton club” was formed, which literally wrote the rules of the game that we still follow today.
The game exploded and in 1899 the first national tournament was played. In 1934 the International Badminton Association was formed, initially with members from England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, New Zealand and France. India joined in 1936 and more and more international championships and tournaments were created. In the 1970s, Asians, particularly Chinese women, practiced this sport with passion. Asian teams, especially the Chinese, continue to dominate the sport to this day.
Badminton eventually became an award-winning Olympic sport at the 1992 Barcelona events.