according to her interview, miss sweden "loves badminton". maybe we can promote the sport by getting miss universe contestants to play badminton too http://www.missuniverse.com/delegates/2003/country/SE.html
Hasn't badminton always been popular in Sweden? (compared to US anyway.) Interesting she lists horseback riding in front of badminton though...
Sorry to bring this up, I got 180' opposite feedback when I metioned something like this. Once I was telling several friends (man enough, at least, they think) even pop/movie stars like badminton. I think I metioned a female's name (Sally Yeh???), and guess what. They started to laugh, and say, "see... we were right... badminton is just a GIRL's sport..." Then, I realized that they won't listen, and refuse to accept the truth anyway. So, I just told me, "whatever u think, and i don't think u ppl truly respect sports anyway."... Left with with a big sign on my face.
So football, running around after an inflatable piece of leather...while screaming at others and kissing eachother and ripping off shirts to team mates isn't a bit girly?
The statistics say 5 million people play badminton in the UK (maybe!). That's about 1/12 of the UK's population. You're living in a town. If you work in a large, depressing office block with about 300 employees, take a lunch hour one day to talk badminton with your 25 new buddies. Form a club with these people, and make three teams of graded levels. Organise a night in on of the town's 5 sports hall where you can all meet to practice and play matches against other Office Block teams. You can have an Office Block league, with three divisions. Call them "storeys". You can be sure that the sports hall has at least two nights open this week and none of the other 8000 local players wishes to play the best sport in the world over the next few days. Not to mention, MORE popular sports like football are sure to have very few nights booked this week. Therefore, in a few months, two of the town's sports halls will be closed down. 5 million play, sports halls get shut down. But the stuff linking all this makes no sense. I'm OK with it. I'm too tired to walk to badminton tonight, so I'll just go four houses up and hope someone is driving there to play in the same game as me. The whole of the UK's badminton raquets, end to end forming a track, would take 4 days to drive down if one kept within the national speed limit. Aleik.
With all the different activities she lists, I doubt she is all that serious about badminton. Maybe Mag (or someone else from Sweden) could give us a better report.
Yah, Mag should take up the challenge. A golden opportunity. At least you have something in common (i.e. baddy) with her for a start! Also your intellect appears matching as well. English may be a good common ground to start off instead of Swedish. Hope the distance, even if you are living quite far apart, is no barrier.
Haha, that's pretty awkward! However, it's probably a sport she enjoys and plays it once every year haha. *Dreams of Miss Sweden vsing some other country in a badminton match because it's part of the contest!* Hahaha If they never played badminton, don't jump to conclusion!
Hi all, To increase badmintons popularity, each country should travel their own country and create these exhibitions of world class players and get them to interact. Once people come in and see the skill that these top players can produce, then it would widen their minds a bit. A chance to interact with these players on court would be even more beneficial as they would get a taste for it and want to play when they leave. These sorts of exhibitions are happening more and more and this has increased badmintons popularity. These exhibitions and getting close to the worlds best, i feel, is the right way. Matt
looking at the number of new members in the introduction thread, look like the beijing OG had given badminoton a higher profile. U can't hold a good sport game down
forgot to add, as more people in china are exposed to new sports after watching this OG, badminton and table tennis would lose some appeal to the new sports, relatively speaking. I still see a net gain tho IMO
hehe ---------------------------- 09:09, May 15, 2009 BWF deputy president satisfied with status quo of badminton Paisan Rangsikitpho, deputy president of Badminton World Federation (BWF), said on Thursday that he was satisfied with the status quo of badminton and its ranking in the Olympic family went up. "Now the ranking of badminton in the Olympics went quite high and I think the ranking is around 14 or 15 now," he said without elaborating on what standard is used. On rumors that badminton might be dropped from the Summer Olympics, Rangsikitpho said: "26 sports are guaranteed until 2020, including badminton." "IOC is happy with us as in Athens (Games) we had 32 NOCs and in Beijing (Games) we had 50. And we have improved our TV audience," he added. China plans to re-launch its badminton league later this year or next year, which may cause conflicts between the schedules of the league and BWF events. "I hope not. If Chinese players don't participate, they won't get world ranking points. In the Olympic qualifying year, if Chinese players play in the league rather than world points events, they won't get into the Olympics. Which one is more important?" said Rangsikitpho. Rangsikitpho also expressed a strong will to boost BWF's partnership with China in future. "We hope China can help the development of badminton in smaller countries in different continents, and we need Chinese coaching and techniques," said Rangsikitpho. "We had a meeting with Chinese Badminton Association and they offered to help." Source:Xinhua
^^China's role in badminton..^^ ..is similar to the U.S.'/NBA's role in basketball..Eventhough it wasn't the Chinese who invented the game, whereas basketball was invented/found by YMCA's Dr. James Naismith (yes, a Canadien) and evolved to become the NBA.. Btw, it should be interesting to see who will yield first, CBA (and its agenda) or BWF??..hmm..