Badminton

Winning qualification for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games

The badminton games will be held from June 26 in Tarnow at the Jaskolka Arena and will last a week. Nearly 160 players from all over Europe will take part in the struggle, and they will fight, not only for medals, but also for the title of European Championships and for qualification points for the Olympic Games, which will be held in 2024 in Paris.

The Arena Jaskółka in Tarnow, in terms of seating capacity, is the second-largest facility of its kind in Lesser Poland. The three-story arena has 4296 seats in the auditorium. The sports arena is suitable for holding competitions in virtually any sports discipline, both national and international.

Rules of the game

Badminton can be played in pairs or directly against an opponent 1:1. Each match consists of sets, and the match ends when one of the players or one of the teams scores exactly 21 points. The entire match is completed after 2 winning sets by one of the sides. In the event of a tie, as with any sport, an additional set must be played – in badminton a third set is played. When the set score is tied 20:20, the team or player who first gains a 2 point lead wins. Points are scored when the opponent misses the dart, it lands out of the court or bounces it off the net.

The serve is made from a special service area, and the serving player and the person receiving the serve must stand diagonally. When the serving player has zero points or the number of points is even, he positions himself on the right side of the court, if odd, he serves from the left side of the court. Importantly, when serving, the player must not take his feet off the ground, the racquet must not be below his hand, and the aileron must not be higher than the waistline.

Badminton matches in single games are played on a rectangular court measuring 13.4 by 5.18 meters, and doubles games are on a court measuring 13.4 by 6.1 meters.

The showcase game of the 19th century at the Olympic Games

The origins of badminton are estimated to date back as far as several thousand years earlier. Archaeologists have often uncovered ancient paintings in the remains of ancient civilizations – Aztec and Chinese, which depicted a game very similar to badminton. The name of the game is derived from the English name of the estate , “Badminton House”, which belonged to the 8th Duke of Beaufort, Henry Somerset, located in Gloucestershire. It was there, in 1870, that the first demonstration of the game, which consisted of tapping a racket with a dart made of cork and feathers using rules similar to those of today, took place.

Over time, badminton became increasingly popular, gaining a foothold among amateurs as well as professionals. The International Badminton Federation was established, bringing together national badminton associations.

Worldwide, badminton is most popular in East Asian countries and Denmark. In 1988 at the Summer Olympics in Seoul, badminton was first included as a sport, but from a more demonstrative side, and four years later at the Barcelona Games it was added to the list of Olympic disciplines.