The Origin of Badminton: From Ancient Games to Olympic Glory

On July 28, 1992, at the Barcelona Olympic arena, Indonesia’s Susi Susanti defeated Bang Soo-hyun to claim the gold medal. Two hours later, her fiancé Alan Budi Kusuma won gold in the men’s singles as well. Indonesia had captured its first Olympic badminton gold medals — and a couple had taken two of them on the same day.^[1]

But trace the origins of what happened on that court, and you quickly run into a genuinely complicated question. Where did badminton begin? Was it a sport born in the grand houses of English nobility, a game that evolved on the streets of India, or something carried forward from Asian folk pastimes thousands of years old? All three answers are partly right — and partly wrong.

Humanity’s Long Habit of Hitting Feathered Objects

The shuttlecock — a feathered object struck with a paddle or racket and kept aloft — was not invented by any single civilization. It appears to have emerged independently across multiple cultures over at least 2,000 years.^[2]

In China, there was a game called jianzi (毽子). Records suggest it existed as far back as the 5th century BCE, and during the Han Dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) it was used as part of military training.^[2] The gameplay involved keeping the shuttlecock airborne using the feet and body rather than a racket — a folk sport played entirely without implements. It remains popular today across China, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia.

Japan had hanetsuki (羽根突き). This traditional game, tracing its roots to the Heian period (794–1185), involved striking a feathered shuttlecock called a hane with a square wooden paddle called a hagoita.^[3] It survives today as a folk pastime played during the New Year holidays. Players can volley the shuttlecock back and forth between two people, or attempt to keep it airborne solo.

Similar games existed in Europe as well. Ancient Greek paintings and reliefs depict scenes resembling battledore and shuttlecock, and there are records from medieval England and France of children striking feathered cork objects with small wooden paddles.^[4] By the 17th century, battledore and shuttlecock had become a fashionable amusement among European upper classes. The object was not to compete across a net but for two players to keep the shuttlecock in the air as long as possible.^[4]

The common thread running through all these games is clear: the fundamental principle of keeping a shuttlecock aloft. But the decisive leap toward modern badminton had not yet been made. That required the introduction of a net and competitive rules.

India’s ‘Poona’: A Game the Soldiers Brought Home

In the mid-19th century, British colonial officers stationed in the western Indian city of Pune (then spelled Poona in English) encountered a local net-based battledore game.^[5] Played with two teams exchanging a shuttlecock across a net, it was far more competitive than conventional battledore. The British officers called it ‘Poona.’

Poona spread rapidly among British soldiers stationed in India. By the 1860s it was already an established pastime in the ranks, and officers returning to Britain brought both the rules and the equipment back with them.^[5] Once it arrived back in Britain, however, the game would take on an entirely different name.

Badminton House: How a Sport Got Its Name

In 1873, a party was held at Badminton House, the country estate of the Duke of Beaufort in Gloucestershire. According to one popular account, the Duke had been introduced to the Poona game by officers returned from India and demonstrated it to his guests.^[6]

This story, however, is somewhat romanticized. Historians point out that Badminton House is better understood not as the actual birthplace of a new sport, but rather as the fashionable social venue where a net shuttlecock game already circulating in Britain gained its foothold among the upper classes.^[6] Regardless, the name ‘badminton’ — taken directly from the estate — stuck, and eventually became the sport’s official designation worldwide.

The timing matters. When badminton began to be played seriously in Britain in the 1870s, English society was in the midst of a great era of sports institutionalization. The Football Association (1863), the Rugby Football Union (1871), and the codification of cricket’s Laws were all part of the same wave — dozens of sports acquiring rules and forming clubs. Badminton rode that same tide.^[7]

The Birth of the Rules: From Bath to Portsmouth

In 1877, the Bath Badminton Club drew up the first written set of rules.^[7] This marks badminton’s formal beginning as an organized sport. But early rules varied from place to place, and court dimensions were far from standardized.

One curious detail: early badminton courts were not rectangular. They were hourglass-shaped — narrow in the middle and wider at both ends.^[7] The narrowing at the centre was a practical concession to indoor play, designed to avoid posts and doorways. This shape remained in use until 1901, when courts were finally standardized into the rectangle familiar today.

In 1887, J. H. E. Hart of the Bath Badminton Club made a substantial revision to the rules.^[8] Hart and Bagnel Wild revised them again in 1890. Then, on September 13, 1893, the Badminton Association of England (BAE) was formally founded at a building called ‘Dunbar’ in Portsmouth.^[8] The rules adopted by this body became the foundation of the global standard.

One aspect of the early rules deserves particular notice: the scoring system. Early badminton used side-out scoring, in which only the serving side could score a point. Men’s singles was played to 15 points and women’s singles to 11 — a system that would remain in place for well over a century.^[9]

The International Federation and Global Spread

In 1934, the International Badminton Federation (IBF) was founded. Its nine founding member nations were Canada, Denmark, England, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, and Wales.^[10] The list is telling: not a single Asian nation was among them. European countries dominated the world badminton stage at this point.

The IBF changed its name to the Badminton World Federation (BWF) at the 2006 General Assembly in Madrid.^[10] The reason was a practical one: the acronym IBF was causing confusion with the International Boxing Federation.

International team competition had begun in earnest somewhat earlier. The Thomas Cup — the men’s world team championship — was first held in 1948–49.^[11] Named after legendary English player Sir George Alan Thomas, who personally donated the trophy at the 1939 IBF General Assembly, the event had originally been scheduled for 1941–42 but was postponed by the Second World War.

The women’s team championship, the Uber Cup, began in 1956–57.^[12] Proposed by England’s Betty Uber in 1950, it took seven years to come to fruition. From 1984, the two tournaments have been held simultaneously in the same year.^[12]

Asia’s Rise and the Shifting Balance of Power

The early international stage was dominated by Malaysia and Denmark. But from the 1970s onward, Indonesia rose sharply, transforming the landscape of world badminton entirely. Indonesia won 51 of 54 matches in the Thomas Cup during the 1970s, an overwhelming dominance that the country sustained for decades.^[13]

In 1982, China announced itself on the world stage. Having joined the IBF relatively recently, China defeated Indonesia 5–4 in the Thomas Cup final in London, instantly establishing itself as a major force.^[13] China subsequently became the dominant power in world badminton across both men’s and women’s events — sweeping more than 60 gold medals at the BWF World Championships alone.^[13]

Denmark has remained the one European nation capable of challenging Asia’s monopoly. In 2016, Denmark defeated Indonesia 3–2 to win the Thomas Cup for the first time — the first non-Asian nation ever to claim the trophy.^[14]

Asia’s dominance in world badminton is not simply a matter of individual athletic talent. In countries like Indonesia, China, South Korea, Malaysia, and Japan, badminton is a major sport in which young players receive systematic training from childhood. It is the cumulative product of national athlete development programmes, high public interest, and climate conditions that encourage high rates of participation in indoor sports.^[15]

The 2006 Revolution: Reinventing the Scoring System

One of the most sweeping changes in badminton’s history came in 2006. The BWF abolished the old side-out scoring system and introduced rally point scoring, in which a point is awarded after every rally.^[9] The maximum score per game was also standardized — raised from 15 (men) and 11 (women) to 21 points for all.

The driving force behind the change was broadcasting. Under the old system, match duration was extremely unpredictable. Two well-matched teams could exchange serves for a long time without either side scoring, making it difficult for television broadcasters to plan airtime and easy for viewers to grow bored.^[9] Rally point scoring solved this. Every rally carried tension, and matches as a whole became faster-paced and more dynamic.

There was pushback, of course. Players who had spent careers developing tactics around the old scoring system had to adapt. Those who relied on powerful service games found their strategic advantage diminished. Overall, though, the change clearly raised the dynamism of matches, and is widely credited with contributing to badminton’s growing popularity with mass audiences.^[9]

Reaching the Olympic Stage

Badminton was introduced as a demonstration sport at the 1972 Munich Olympics. Twenty years later, it finally became a full medal sport at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, with men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, and women’s doubles all competing for gold medals for the first time.^[1]

It was on that historic stage that Susi Susanti became the first person to win an Olympic badminton gold medal. A total of 178 athletes representing 37 nations took part, and Malaysia’s Foo Kok Keong struck the first-ever Olympic shuttlecock in the arena.^[1] At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, mixed doubles was added, completing the five-event format that remains in place today.

Asia’s dominance carried through to the Olympic stage without interruption. China has claimed more than half of all Olympic badminton gold medals in history, with Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, and Denmark following behind.

The BWF World Championships: The Stage for Individual Supremacy

The World Championships — the competition that crowns the world’s best individual players — was first held in 1977 in Malmö, Sweden.^[16] In a converted ice rink, 135 athletes from 26 nations competed for the first world titles. Denmark was the big winner of the inaugural event: Lene Køppen took gold in women’s singles and mixed doubles, and Denmark claimed three of the five available gold medals.^[16]

The Championships were initially held on a three-year cycle, changed to biennial in 1983, and are now held annually. The event remains one of the most intensely contested stages in the sport.

The Paradox in the Name

Badminton got its name in England, but England is not a badminton powerhouse today. The seeds of the game were planted in Asia, the rules were codified by Britain, and the fruits have been harvested by Indonesia, China, South Korea, and Denmark.

Badminton House — an English aristocrat’s estate — lent its name to this sport, yet the county of Gloucestershire where it stands occupies little more than a footnote in global badminton history. Where a sport has its roots, and where that sport ultimately flourishes, can be entirely different stories. Badminton may be the clearest illustration of that fact.