March 30: National Badminton Day

Today is National Badminton Day. Here are 10 things you might not know about the game of badminton.

1. The exact origins of the game are obscure, but games of a similar nature were played in Greece, China and India over 2,000 years ago. These players used their hands, or even their Feet, instead of racquets.
2. The modern version of the game was originally called ‘battledore and shuttlecock’. Battledore is an old name for a racquet. The shuttlecock's name derives from the fact that it moves backwards and forwards during the game like the shuttle of a 14th-century loom, and because it was made from feathers and therefore resembled a bird. In fact, an alternative name for it is a "birdie".
3. The name Badminton comes from Badminton, the country estate of the Duke of Beaufort, where the game was played in the mid 19th century. This version of the game could date back to 1860, when a London toy dealer named Isaac Spratt published a booklet entitled Badminton Battledore – A New Game. However, no copies of this book survive.
4. A shuttlecock weighs between 4.74 and 5.50 grams. It is made from 16 feathers, and according to tradition, the best ones are made from the feathers from the left wing of a goose. The idea is thought to have originated from the fact that, in the days when people wrote with quills, the quills were stuck into corks when not in use; and bored office clerks invented a game where they batted them around the room.
5. A badminton racquet weighs between 70 and 95 grams (2.5 and 3.4 ounces), not including the strings. Today, they are usually made from carbon fibre or steel. Early ones were made from wood. The strings are most often made from plastic although some players are said even now to prefer strings made from the dried stomach lining of Cows or Cats.
6. Badminton claims to be the world's second most popular participation sport, after Soccer. It has only been an Olympic sport since the Barcelona games of 1992, however. That said, 1.1bn people tuned in to watch the first Olympic badminton tournament.
7. It's the world's fastest racquet sport. Shuttles can travel at 200mph or more during a game with the fastest speed on record being 332kph (206mph) by Fu Haifeng of China in 2005.
8. The winner of a game of badminton is the player who is first to reach 21 points (a point is scored for each rally won) unless the score reaches 20 all in which case a player has to achieve a two point lead to win. If there is still a tie at 29 all the game goes to a golden point and the next player to score a point wins. There are three games in a match.
9. The world's shortest badminton match was just six minutes long, between Ra Kyung-min (South Korea) and Julia Mann (England). Peter Rasmussen (Denmark) and Sun Jun (China) hold the record for the longest match, which lasted 124 minutes.
10. People from Asia seem to be the best badminton players, with over 90% of Olympic medals going to players from Asian countries. The Thomas Cup, the men's world team championships, has been won by only three countries since it began in 1948 - Malaysia, Indonesia and China.

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Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

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Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two