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Estimated read time: 2 minutes
Contrary to popular belief, badminton the sport is played indoors!
While it did feature outdoors 2,000 years ago, things have changed dramatically. It also looks like there is a new push by the BWF (Badminton World Federation) for more outdoor play, so things are coming full circle!
Badminton that you see today is predominantly played indoors and is the second most popular sport by participation in the world, behind football (or soccer for the Aussies!). It is estimated that there are 220 million participants playing the world's fastest sport globally.
You read correctly, the world's fastest sport!
The fastest recorded smash in competition to date currently sits at 417 km/hr - achieved by Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia. The fastest recorded smash in general currently sits at 493 km/hr! - by Tan Boon Heong of Malaysia.
You must be thinking that those Malaysians can seriously smash a shuttlecock!
Speaking of the shuttlecock. Did you know that it takes 16 feathers to make a shuttle using ONLY the left wing of a goose? No joke! It's not a surprise that the entire shuttlecock only weighs in around 4.74 to 5.50 grams.
With a racquet that weighs between 70-95 grams before adding strings or a grip, you must think that it would be pretty easy to play! Well...it is!
It's an easy sport to pick up, an effective way to stay active and a challenge to become great at! and if you get really good, jump smashing is one of the closest things to real flying...watch this!
This video features Lin Dan of China, arguably the greatest badminton player of all time.
As you can probably tell by now, the sport is an Asian dominated sport. Even though modern day badminton was invented in the 1800's, it did not become a popular sport in the United States and Australia until the 1930's. To be honest, it still hasn't. In Australia, there is an estimated number of 160,000 badminton participants. Compare that to the 220 million players worldwide, it's not much!
The evolution and growth of badminton worldwide has been relatively slow if we take everything into consideration. Despite its long history, it was only included as an Olympic sport in the 1992 Olympic games in Barcelona. But when that happened, 1.1 billion people tuned in to watch it!
So maybe it's time to join the fun! What do you think? It's time to get out there and enjoy the sport. Whether that be socially with some friends or competitively with some rivals!
Final Fun Fact:The largest Shuttlecock in the world, an 18-foot-tall badminton shuttlecock weighing at 2,500kg, lies on the lawn of Donald J Hall Sculpture Park, in Kansas City. It is also where we drew our inspiration for our brand logo!
We'd love to hear your comments, suggestions, tips and tricks so please feel free to comment below. If you would like us to write about something in particular, please let us know!
Main image source: Volant Wear
Video source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KcwrURXl44
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