The Olympics is a good time to realize that there are some great sports out there that we in the US never get to see played at a high level.
One of them is the reputed fastest sport in the world: Badminton.
Yes, the game that is viewed in the US as a children’s summer picnic pastime but is taken seriously in many parts of the world (especially Asia) turns out to be the fastest. Of course, how one determines what is fastest can be disputed. The claim here is based on the fact that the shuttlecock has been measured as traveling as fast as 206 mph at the point of being hit, easily beating baseballs, cricket balls, hockey pucks, golf balls, and the like. Of course, the feathers on the shuttle slow it down but this variance in speed is part of the challenge of the game, as I can attest to first hand since I played it quite a lot in Sri Lanka.
When you see world champions play the game, you quickly realize how fast it is, requiring lightning-quick reflexes. Here is a point from the 2012 Olympics badminton final that may have been the final one that clinched the game for the defending gold medalist Lin Dan of China against Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia.
And here is an incredible rally from a doubles game from the 2010 world championships that shows the rapid reflexes and teamwork required. How the players avoid crashing into each other beats me.
16 comments
Skip to comment form ↓
zekehoskin
August 8, 2012 at 5:53 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not knocking badminton, but the fastest sport is airplane racing. The sport demanding the fastest reflexes might be some form of motor racing, or fencing, or unicycle basketball. Or badminton, of course, though the short distances of table tennis give me to rank it as heavier on reflexes, though lighter in power and top speed, than the larger-scale racquet/racket sports.
bigmike
August 8, 2012 at 6:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
i heard that ping pong was the fastest sport.
Trebuchet
August 8, 2012 at 9:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Badminton is only the fastest, of course, when both teams aren’t trying their hardest to lose.
MNb0
August 8, 2012 at 11:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
If the speed of the object is the norm badminton is the fastest sport indeed. But if we look at the time interval between two opponents hitting it table tennis wins. This time interval is between 0,025 and 0,04 seconds. What’s more, the table tennis ball rotates a few thousand times a second.
No matter how impressive I find those two video’s, try this:
Joe T
August 9, 2012 at 12:19 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I LOVE table tennis played at an elite level. I got fairly good for a while at college but i could never get close to matching the foreign students who had been playing their whole life.
Badminton is also awesome to watch when played by the pros but ping pong will always be my fav.
Dunc
August 9, 2012 at 4:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’d argue that sabre fencing is probably the fastest Olympic sport… As far as I know, fencing is the only sport that’s had to actually define precisely what “simultaneous” means, down to the millisecond (it’s “within 40 milliseconds”). It’s almost impossible to follow a sabre bout at normal speed…
Chrisj
August 9, 2012 at 9:31 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So a bit like the way baseball is regarded outside the USA, then?
Kilane
August 9, 2012 at 10:36 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
That speed statistic is deceptive. That’s the speed when it is smashed, it slows down dramatically by the time the opponent returns it. I attempted to find the speed at the point of return but couldn’t find it anywhere, presumably because it’s much less impressive.
I’m a bit biased but fencing seems like one of the sports that are up there. One of the first sports to adopt electronics because it’s near impossible to tell a hit without it. Judges can barely tell who has priority (first to make movement towards an attack) and they do it professionally (you’ll see a couple overturned decisions in a first to 15 match). As a spectator I’ll see a blaze of swords and a light.
left0ver1under
August 9, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
What counts as a “fast” sport depends on opinion and possibly bias. Those mentioned above involve objects moving at high speed, not people. A person can stand still and break the sound barrier with a bullwhip.
In other sports which claim to be the fastest, it is the human body moving (e.g. 100 metre dash) or the body is driving an object connected to it (e.g. a bicycle, ice skates).
I’m partial to the second definition, not the first. The first’s could include skeet shooting and pistols as the “fastest” or cars. Whether one considers badminton and car racing sports is up for debate, but they certainly aren’t athletics.
MNb0
August 9, 2012 at 1:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Frankly I don’t care about definitions. It’s sports; I just want to be in awe. Long live my subjectivity and bias! As far as I’m concerned the entire list of logical fallacies is allowed when discussing sports.
Zinc Avenger (Sarcasm Tags 3.0 Compliant)
August 10, 2012 at 1:48 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Forget the speed at impact – I find the unusual flight characteristics of the shuttlecock to be the most interesting part. Hit it just right and you can steam it over the net, only for it to lose airspeed as it approaches the far end… then plummet almost directly downwards just the right side of the court lines.
Ah, now I miss playing it weekly.
rq
August 10, 2012 at 7:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
As for not crashing into each other in doubles, the way this was (more or less) fixed when I did some playing was a strict adherence to left-right or front-back playing, where the players decide who plays which parts of the court and do their utmost not to infringe into each other’s territory. That, and a lot of practice with each other.
Skip White
August 10, 2012 at 12:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Chrisj,
Not to nitpick, but baseball is also taken fairly seriously in Japan as well as the Caribbean and Central America.
SEBA
February 8, 2013 at 1:31 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
BOXING
Ben Hayman
February 19, 2013 at 4:58 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Airhockey is deffinitly the worlds fastest sport.
danbo50097
April 15, 2013 at 1:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Without a doubt, the Irish sport of hurling is the fastest and most intense sport in the world. Take a look at this video, and you’ll see what I mean.