Far from the highly publicized sports that football or tennis have become, badminton is experiencing real fervor, particularly in Asia. An official Olympic discipline since 1992, it is now gaining momentum all over the world with constantly growing indicators. A trend that also concerns France. Badminton arrives from March 5 to 10 in its brand new Parisian setting during the French Open, a dress rehearsal before the Olympic Games which will take place at the same place this summer. To better understand this demanding sport, too often compared to a simple beach game, here are six figures that will amaze you.
7.6 million dollars: the annual earnings of the driving star
More than 7 million euros: this is the amount pocketed in 2023 by Indian player Pusarla Venkata Sindhu. She ranks 17th among the highest paid female athletes in the world in the latest Forbes list, tied with American gymnast Simone Biles but far behind Polish tennis star Iga Swiatek and her $23.9 million earnings. . This sum does not correspond to the emoluments that Sindhu was able to collect on the circuit: with only one final of a World Tour tournament to her credit last year, she only pocketed $47,000 on the field. Most of its earnings come from advertising revenue.
This can be explained by the ever more important place of badminton in the Indian sporting landscape, almost exclusively focused on cricket until Saina Newhal’s bronze medal at the 2012 Olympic Games sent the country into an impressive frenzy. . Today, dozens of academies train young champions in the country and sport arouses commercial desire.
The best Indonesians, stars adored and followed by millions of fans, also pocket sums estimated at several million dollars a year, cumulative sporting gains and sponsorships, just like the best Chinese, whose impact on equipment sales for the One of the flagship sports of the Middle Kingdom is significant. The latter must, however, share part of their income with their federation.
World number one, Danish Viktor Axelsen, pocketed nearly $400,000 in prize money on the circuit in 2023. AFLO SPORT/Presse Sports
In Europe, a few Danes are doing well, with undoubtedly the majority of their winnings acquired on the field. The world number one, Viktor Axelsen, pocketed nearly $400,000 in prize money on the circuit in 2023 but his sponsors, apart from his equipment manufacturer and the title sponsor of the World Tour of which he is ambassador, remain relatively confidential brands. With emoluments well below the 138 million dollars of Cristiano Ronaldo for example.
In France, unsurprisingly, even if some players are starting to benefit from a semi-professional status and the timid arrival of private partners, it is essentially the equipment manufacturers and the clubs which ensure the remuneration of bad players. A well-known and still rare fact in sport: the prize money distributed on the international circuit is equivalent for men and women.
565 km/h: the speed of a smash
Timed in 2023 from the racket of Indian player Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, this world record puts badminton at the top of the fastest sports practiced on the planet. Far ahead of formula 1 (373 km/h), golf (350 km/h) or tennis (serve record at 263 km/h). The smash speeds of the world’s best during official competitions are often calculated by radars at around 350 km/h, but recreational players can reach speeds of 200 km/h. The shuttlecock is then slowed in its course by the friction of the feathers in the air. As opposed to the plastic projectile used by beginners, competitors play with shuttlecocks made of a cork and 16 feathers from the left wing of the goose.
A characteristic which also gave the idea to Eric Collet, a physicist at the University of Rennes, to dissect the movement of the latter, since it evolves asymmetrically with a rotation in the counterclockwise direction. a watch. According to him, left-handers would have an advantage on one shot in particular: during the “slice” (brushed shuttlecock), the reverse rotation causes the shuttlecock to slow down much more quickly, which falls more quickly, with a steeper trajectory of around 15 degrees.
The scientific explanation therefore corroborates the general impression that left-handers therefore find more effective angles. The study, published in the very serious New Scientist, also reveals that the shuttlecock sees its weight increase from an equivalence of 5 grams to 25 kilograms during impact with the racket.
Coming from a family of Bulgarian badminton players, Toma Junior and Christo Popov are rising figures in French badminton. BAPTISTE PAQUOT/Press Sports
2 brothers for one place
In theory, there will only be one place available for the French in each of the five categories forming the badminton events at the Olympic Games (men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles). And in men’s singles, the suspense is at its height: it risks playing out between the two best tricolors, who are today one place short in the qualifying rankings. And who are… brothers! Toma junior (eldest, 25 years old) and Christo Popov (21 years old) are in fact the best placed to win the only ticket for the Games – unless both can enter the world top 16 before the fateful date of April 28, which seems difficult today.
A real headache for the national technical management, but also for the dad, who is none other than their daily coach, in the academy that they created from scratch in Fos-sur-Mer. The two brothers, but also the other French men and women who are still flirting with qualifying for the Games, could well go for the last crucial points at the Adidas Arena, the brand new Olympic hall, which hosts Porte de la Chapelle in Paris, from March 5 to 10, the biggest annual French tournament, the Yonex Internationaux de France badminton. Guaranteed show!
392,000,000, the number of practitioners in the world
This is the number of people in the world who play badminton at least once a week, according to figures published by the International Federation. The practice is very widespread in Asia in particular. Very often, in the suburbs close to the large megacities of Thailand, China, India or Indonesia, gigantic hangars house badminton academies where hundreds of regular players come to train to imitate the champions, true national icons. They also house private clubs in which individuals rent a session by the hour to play with friends.
In France, the practice is mainly done in an associative environment with clubs which organize their slots according to levels. The French Badminton Federation has also broken a record number of licensees this year, with the mark of 200,000 registered in more than 2000 clubs as of January (with the hope of reaching 210,000 in June).
If we add school, university and corporate practices, the number of regular players is estimated at one million. A figure that could well increase: the Pinterest Predicts influence indicator places badminton as THE trendy sport for 2024.
500, calories burned
Who said badminton is a beach sport? Far from this image that it has had for decades, this sport is in fact one of the most intense in terms of physical expenditure, just behind boxing and ice hockey. The average energy expended by a recreational player (500 calories) can reach 675 by elites.
For practitioners, like squash, one-hour sessions are often enough to sweat well and suffer from aches for a few days for novices. But this is not the only benefit of this activity. According to recently published studies, beyond the benefits on the cardiovascular system, badminton improves endurance, lung health, sleep quality and reduces bad cholesterol. The chances of having diabetes are reduced by 68% among regular gamers, with also a beneficial impact on the progression of myopia.
This sport also has psychological virtues, apart from the production of dopamine or endorphin, inherent to any sporting activity: the speed of progress of almost all practitioners promotes self-confidence. Thus, a charitable association, Solibad, has made badminton a particularly effective tool to promote the integration of children in very precarious circumstances (in Madagascar or Indonesia for example).
1873, the birth of the modern game
This is the date when the rules of modern badminton were created. According to legend, it was former English officers who brought an ancient practice up to date, the poona, a racket game with light balls played in the Indian colonies. It was during a weekend at the Duke of Beaufort’s home at Badminton in Gloucestershire that they made a projectile from a champagne cork to which they attached feathers. They gave the sport a new name, badminton, and made it known under this new name.
The rules were first recorded in 1873 in India, then more officially 4 years later in England. On the other hand, we find traces of very similar games in ancient China, almost 2000 years ago, but also in hanetsuki, a traditional Japanese game, and in Europe, where young girls from good French and English families played “shuttlecock game” without a net but with rackets and feathered projectiles, from the 17th century.
Several were immortalized a little later in paintings by Chardin or Fragonard. The French federation was born in 1934, a few months before the international federation, but was attached to the French Tennis Federation during the Vichy regime, before being reborn in 1979.
2024-03-01 08:00:00
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