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Like many other racket sports, badminton has a long history! Badminton gets its name from Badminton House in Gloucestershire, England — the home of the Duke of Beaufort, where the sport was played in the last century. Before Badminton House, there was a game called poona (a game played by British army officers stationed in India). Before poona, there was jeu de volant played on the European Continent, before that, battledore and shuttlecock, and, before that, Ti Jian Zi — as you can see, it’s not easy tracking the lineage of the sport we now call badminton! The origins of badminton date back at least two thousand years, a surprisingly long history for one of the Olympics’ newest sports!

Worldwide popularity for the sport surged only after badminton’s Olympic debut at Barcelona in 1992. The first major tournament was the Thomas Cup (world men’s team championships) in 1948. There are now many world tournaments. After all these years, badminton is not so different from its ancient predecessors, nor from the game played by elite society in the mid-1800s, except for the speed of the game. Here’s an interesting fact for you — the fastest smash recorded by Great Britain’s Simon Archer, was clocked at over 160 mph (260 km/hr)!