Badminton

Sport Overview

Badminton at Tokyo 2020

Venue: Musashino Forest Sport Plaza

Competition Dates: July 24-August 2, 2021 (Days 1-10)

Events: 5 (2 men, 2 women, 1 mixed)

National Federation: Badminton Canada 

International Federation: Badminton World Federation (BWF) 

The aim in this racket sport is to score points by hitting a shuttlecock over a raised net and onto the floor of the opponent’s court. The five badminton events include men’s and women’s singles, men’s and women’s doubles, as well as mixed doubles. All feature two stages of competition: Group Play and Knock-Out.

In the Group Play stage, the players or pairs are divided into groups of four. After a round robin within each group, a final overall ranking for those groups are established. The highest ranked singles player and top two doubles teams in each group move on to the Knock-Out stage, where they are placed into a single elimination tournament draw. The competitions conclude with the semifinal winners playing for gold and silver while the semifinal losers play for bronze.

Each badminton match is a best-of-three games, with each game played to 21 points. Badminton uses “rally point scoring”, meaning that if the serving side wins a rally, that side scores a point and serves again. If the receiving side wins a rally, that side scores a point and becomes the new serving side.

If the score reaches 20-all, the side that first gains a two-point lead wins that game. If the score reaches

29-all, the winner of the next point wins that game.

Canada’s Olympic History (Pre-Tokyo 2020)

Canada has not yet won an Olympic medal in badminton, but had a notable result at London where Michelle Li and Alex Bruce finished just off the podium in fourth place in women’s doubles. In singles play, four Canadians have advanced to the Round of 16: Doris Piché (women, Barcelona 1992), Denyse Julien (women, Barcelona 1992), Anna Rice (women, Beijing 2008), and Iain Sydie (men, Atlanta 1996).