Badminton

The Olympic sport badminton is a sport for everyone. Everyone can play badminton at any age. The game started on meadows or in calm evenings on the quiet streets in front of the house. The players throw the feather ball in such a way that the other can easily reach it and play it back. This is one of the serious differences to badminton, which is played in Germany either in a club or in a commercially run badminton center. The badminton equipment - sportswear, rackets and the ball is quite inexpensive. The soles of sports shoes must be suitable for indoor use. The racket is available in different qualities, which also determine the price; and the badminton ball, technically called shuttlecock, is either a natural feather ball or a quality plastic ball. In the lower leagues as well as in the youth and school categories, only plastic or plastic balls are used; in the Bundesliga and at international events, of course, natural feather balls are used. Badminton is colloquially referred to as white sport. It is not so much sportswear as the fact that the sport has been free of any doping scandals for decades. In this sense Badminton sees itself as a literally blossom-white sport.

Structured competition system from the local club to the Bundesliga

In Germany and in Europe badminton is played exclusively indoors. Organized badminton is played in member clubs. Either they are pure badminton clubs or badminton departments in a multi-sports club. The clubs are members of the Badminton state associations, which are almost without exception identical with the federal states nationwide. Federal professional association is the German Badminton federation, the DBV, with seat in Mülheim on the Ruhr. It is a full member of the DOSB, the German Olympic Sports Federation in Frankfurt am Main. The DBV organizes the entire national competition and league system, from the Bundesliga as the top league down to the last district league. It is supported in this by the state associations and their regional structures such as districts and counties. Internationally the DBV is a member of the European Badminton Association “Badminton Europe†based in Denmark as well as the BWF, the Badminton World Federation, in the Malaysian capital Kuala-Lumpur. The IOC in Lausanne, which organizes the Olympic Games, is the superordinate body of the BWF. Badminton has been part of the program of the Summer Games for several decades, with all five disciplines of women's and men's singles, women's and men's doubles as well as mixed doubles, including 2016 in Brazil. The venue there is the indoor sports complex Riocentro in the Barra da Tijuca district of Rio de Janeiro.

Regular training in the club

Players generally don't know too much about these tightly organized competition structures. They love the sport and train with their teams once or twice a week. The game takes place in the local school sports halls after school, in late afternoons, evenings and weekends. The badminton equipment with stands and nets is part of the hall equipment, while badminton fields, courts, together with other sports are the standard marking on the sports hall floor. Depending on the size of the sports hall, up to nine single or double fields are marked. Badminton is a very fast sport. The smashed ball reaches an initial speed of up to two hundred kilometers per hour. In contrast to badminton, which is played without a playing field and without a net, badminton is played with a shuttle code in such a way that the opponent does not reach it. This makes every game interesting and fast. Badminton is a mixed sport, i.e. for girls and boys or for women and men together. Also, the teams, up to the Bundesliga, are mixed. The individual matches within a team classification also include a mixed match, the mixed double. If you play badminton in a club, you will soon be anxious to play in a team. The first practice hours take place in the hobby and popular sports department of the club, followed by team training. Point games, i.e. league games in the respective league, are mainly played on weekends, in exceptional cases also on working days during the club training.

Varied training with the badminton trainer

Like other ball games such as handball, soccer or basketball, the players prefer to play with the ball during practice and training hours, even when playing badminton. The trained trainer, i.e. the Badminton trainer or the licensed C, B or A trainer, ensures that enough loosening, stretching and, above all, conditioning exercises are carried out before and after playing with the ball. There are various training aids for this. They are sport overlapping, so they have nothing to do with badminton as such. Mini hurdles, cone or ladder hurdles are best suited for circuit training. Targeted sprint training with the complete set provided for this purpose is just as important as the comprehensive training aid set for season preparation in the first weeks of autumn. For the trainer there are various possibilities to make the training interesting and varied for the mixed team.

Attend events and learn from the badminton stars

The active badminton player in the club has numerous opportunities to visit top-class badminton events. In the one-piece Bundesliga, the German Champion is played on several weekends for the respective season. It is worth visiting a Bundesliga game because the teams include both German national players and top foreign players. The German Championships as a four-day event offer national top sport in badminton. This is clearly topped by the International Championships, the German Open. World-class players from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America will be competing here. At the German Open, spectators can experience Olympic champions as well as world and European champions up close and visit their autograph sessions. The motivation for the domestic training in the coming days and weeks is accordingly large.

Badminton â€" a successful school sport

Since many years Badminton is a recognized and much taught school sport in all federal states. Besides the club and the commercial center, the school is a third opportunity to play badminton. In the nationwide school sport competition JTFO, Jugend trainiert für Olympia, the national champions in badminton are played in different competition classes. The annual Badminton national final is held in Berlin, together with other sports from B like basketball to V like volleyball. From the point of view of the sports teachers, Badminton is also ideal for teaching sports to a larger group of students. The badminton equipment for the students is inexpensive and the simple racquet is easy to carry. The game is played with plastic balls, and mixed training is naturally particularly popular with the pupils.