Giving Badminton the respect it deserves

By Cathy Salter
Wednesday, August 27, 2008 10:01 AM CDT

Recently, I read a piece in TIME on resistance-stretching exercises. Forty-one year old Dara Torres, the silver medalist who made history at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as the oldest swimmer to compete, power-stretches three times a week. Resistance stretching, the article claims, focuses on flexing your muscles as you stretch them which increases strength and flexibility. "Contract your muscles while stretching them and get a workout worthy of an Olympian." Translated locally, Kit pulls my fist away from me as I try to pull it in during a bicep curl.

The next morning, I tested the concept in our asparagus bed, sorely neglected during recent travels. For more than an hour, I pulled out tough clumps of meadow grass that appeared to have roots all the way to China. Approaching the task as an Olympic event with two opponents vying for gold, I represented team Boomerang Creek. In the end, I freed the asparagus fronds from the grips of strangulating grass roots and in the process, found myself feeling wonderfully energized.

With all the rains this spring and summer, our mown meadow has never looked greener. While pulling weeds that morning, I recalled the fun that Kit and I had playing lawn badminton in early August at a Salter family reunion in New Hampshire. Later that same day, we erected an Eddie Bauer badminton net that had been gathering dust in our basement and managed a few energetic volleys to remind ourselves of how the game works.

In my middle teen years, my family lived in a house with a wonderful backyard. During the summer months, our badminton net was a regular fixture in the yard and games with my sisters were spontaneous and spirited. That was forty-five years ago, and I haven't played badminton since, until this summer. When the 2008 Olympics games got underway, I wondered "What about badminton?"

After a bit of research, I learned that badminton was let in as an Olympic sport on a trial basis at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. New Zealand badminton aficionados claim it is the fifth most popular sport in the world. No way, you may be thinking, but consider where the sport has an adoring fan following. China, Indonesia, South Korea, Denmark, Malaysia and Great Britain top the medalist list from the 1992, 1996, 2000, and 2004 games. And, although the U.S. has had a team in all four of these Olympic games, you'd never know it watching NBC's Olympic coverage these past two weeks in Beijing.

On August 17, China's badminton star took the gold. TIME/CNN described the match. "It took only 39 minutes for China's Lin Dan to demolish Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei in men's single's badminton 21-12, 21-8. As the heavily partisan fans raised the decibel level past rock-concert intensity, Lin first threw his racket, then his sweaty shoes into the crowd." There is now, the report claims, "furious bidding on Chinese online auction sites for Lin's throwaways, as though they were national treasures."

Enthusiastic about this racket game that has been played in China, India and Greece since ancient times, I did more reading about the sport and learned that the English name of the game comes from the residence of the Duke of Beaufort who is credited with bringing the modern version of badminton, similar to lawn tennis, back to England from British colonial India. Beaufort's residence in Gloucestershire was called Badminton House.

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