Badminton at the Olympic Games
Badminton was first held as a demonstration sport at the 1972 Summer Olympics. In 1988 it again appeared at the Olympics as an exhibition sport. See more about these badminton demonstrations.
Badminton premiered as a full-medal Olympic sport at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain, and has continued as a full-medal sport since then. There are tournaments for men and women, singles and doubles. A Mixed Doubles event was added to the Olympic Games for the first time in Atlanta in 1996.
Olympic Qualification
- Players qualify for the Olympic Games through their world rankings, based on their performances in such events as the Thomas Cup, the Uber Cup, the World Championships, Grand Prix events and other international and continental championships. The host nation is allowed at least two entries in the Olympic competition.
- No country may have more than three players or pairs in any event, and that involves only players or pairs ranked in the top 16. The limit is two per country if a player or pair ranked 17th to 64th is involved, or one if a player or pair ranked below 64th is involved.
- Each event will include at least one player or pair from each region — Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceania and the Americas.
Badminton was first held as a demonstration sport at the 1972 Summer Olympics.Trivia
- Denmark's Poul-Erik Høyer is the only non-Asian badminton player ever to win an Olympic gold medal. He won the men's singles event in 1996.
- In 2012, for the first time there was a combination of group play and knockout stages. During the round-robin group play of the women's doubles, four teams were accused of trying to lose in order to manipulate the draw, and were subsequently disqualified from the competition.
Players
- The best all-time performing badminton player at the Olympic Games is female player Gao Ling of China, who played in 2000 and 2004, winning 4 gold medals. See more on the Greatest Badminton Players at the Olympics.
Related Pages
- For more information about the sport of Badminton.
- badminton demonstration at the 1972 and 1988 Olympic Games
- See also information about badminton at the Commonwealth Games
- About other badminton major events, including the Badminton world championships
- Badminton at the Paralympics
- List of Olympic Sports
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