A short history information
Cave arts, which were found in India, prove, that more than 2000 years ago people played with oblated woods and wooden balls with chicken feathers. The name of our sport comes from an English country house, owend by the duke of Beaufort, county Cloucestershire. In 1872 British officers brought the game, which was called "poona", to this country house named "Badminton".
Since the end of the 19. century badminton has had a worldwide rapid development:
1893 | Foundation of the first English badminton organisation |
1899 | Holding of the first "All England Championships" |
1903 | Foundation of the first German badminton organisation |
1934 | Foundation of the Internationalen Badminton Federation (IBF) by 9 national organisations, which amount is more than 100 today |
1953 | Foundation of the Deutscher Badminton-Verband (DBV) |
1967 | Foundation of the European Badminton Union (EBU) |
1992 | Badminton is accepted as an olympic discipline (singles, double), 1996 also mixed |
It's biggest popularity badminton has in its European and Asian strongholds England, Denmark, Japan, Indonesia, Korea and China.
"A badminton player should have the hardiness of a marathon runner, the quickness of a sprinter, the bounce of a javelin thrower, the strongness of a smith, the agility of an artist, the ability to respond of a swordsman, the concentrativeness of a chess player, the knowledge of human nature of a representative of vacuum cleaner, the psychic hardship of a scientist of the Arctic, the strength of nerves of a blaster, the inconsiderateness of a colonial master, the obsession of an alpinist and the intuition and fantasy of an artiste. Because this characteristics are rarely centered in one person, there are just few good badminton players."
Martin Knupp: Yonex-Badminton-Yearbook 1986