The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) names US Badminton Team of Tony Gunawan and Howard Bach the 2005 USOC Team of the Year.
At
the 2005 World Badminton Championships held at the Arrowhead Pond in
Anaheim, CA, USA, American doubles pair of Tony
Gunawan and Howard Bach won the United States' first world title.
WorldBadminton.net
http://www.worldbadminton.net/Portal/desktopdefault.aspx?tabid=10&ItemID=1854
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/summer/2005-08-22-badminton-worlds_x.htm
MSNBC
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9037620/
BBC Sport
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/badminton/4172220.stm
China View
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-08/22/content_3388842.htm
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The following is an excerpt from www.usabadminton.org on the history of US badminton.
USA in the Olympics
The sport of badminton was forever changed when, in June 1985, the
International Olympic Committee recognized the sport’s
magnitude (the IBF has 129 member countries) and voted unanimously to
promote badminton to full-medal Olympic status. After having been a
demonstration sport at the 1972 Olympics in Munich and an exhibition
sport in 1988 in Seoul, badminton made a hugely successful full-medal
debut at the Games of the XXVth Olympiad in Barcelona in 1992.
Badminton’s worldwide popularity was proven during the 1992 Olympics, when an estimated 1.1 billion viewers around the globe watched the eight-day inaugural badminton competition on television.
As expected, Asian countries took top honors at badminton’s Olympic debut. Indonesia, a nation that had never won an Olympic gold medal, took home the men’s singles gold, silver, and bronze; women’s singles gold; and men’s doubles silver medals in badminton. Malaysia won its first-ever Olympic medal, a bronze in men’s doubles.
The United States’ first Olympic badminton team consisted of its top six athletes -- three men and three women. In Barcelona, U.S. athletes reached the second round of play.
USA Badminton History
Badminton was invented long ago; its origins date back at least two
thousand years to the game of battledore and shuttlecock played in
ancient Greece, India, and China. Badminton took its name from
Badminton House in Gloucestershire, the home of the Duke of Beaufort,
where the sport was played in the last century. By coincidence,
Gloucestershire is now the base for the International Badminton
Federation (IBF).
Badminton has a rich history in the United States. The first badminton
club in this country, the Badminton Club of New York, was formed in
1878 and became a weekend meeting place for New York’s
society leaders. Badminton’s popularity boomed in the 1930s
as educational institutions, YMCAs, and hundreds of newly formed clubs
offered badminton instruction. Also spurring the sport’s
popularity in the 1930s was the avid play by several Hollywood
personalities including James Cagney, Bette Davis, Boris Karloff, Dick
Powell, Ginger Rogers, Joan Crawford, and Douglas Fairbanks.
The American Badminton Association was organized in 1936 (changed to
USBA in 1978), when Donald Wilbur, Robert McMillan, and twins Donald
and Phillip Richardson, all of Brookline, Massachusetts, decided to
unite the nation’s various badminton groups. Programs from
New York, Massachusetts, Chicago, and the West Coast came together to
form one voice and standardize rules and regulations of the game. The
ABA held its first National Championships in 1937, and became a member
of the International Badminton Federation (IBF) in 1938.
The year 1949 brought the United States its first world champions as David Freeman of Pasadena, California, won men’s singles at the prestigious All-England Championships (considered the unofficial world championships until 1977 when World Championships were instituted). Americans Clinton and Patsy Stevens won the All-England mixed doubles title the same year.
The United States’ international success continued. Between 1949 and 1967, the United States won 23 world individual championships (one men’s singles, 12 women’s singles, one men’s doubles, eight women’s doubles, and one mixed doubles) and three women’s world team championships. The U.S. men’s team was also world runner-up during this period. Sports Illustrated acknowledged the United States’ badminton success by featuring top male player Joe Alston on the cover of its March 7, 1955 issue.
The number of U.S. clubs declined slightly in the 1970s; however, high school and collegiate play expanded.
Nearly 2,700 members belong to the USBA (as of September 1995). The USBA estimates there are thousands more recreational badminton players in the United States. The Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (SGMA) reports in its 1993 study that 300,000 people play badminton weekly in the United States, and 760,000 people call badminton their favorite sport.
The USBA in 1991 moved its National Office from Papillion, Nebraska, to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Currently the USBA has six staff members, including two national coaches. The USBA's mission is to serve as the national governing body of the sport, to increase participation in the sport, to provide the highest possible quality of service to its members, and to achieve outstanding performance in international competition.
The USBA solidified its commitment to improve international performance by forming the Olympic Player Development Committee in 1993. The USBA High Performance Plan, drafted in April 1994, is a detailed, comprehensive plan to achieve Olympic medals by the 2004 Games. Integral parts of that plan include establishing a resident training program at the Olympic Training Center and acquiring a fulltime internationally recognized National Coach -- both of which the USBA accomplished in 1994.
In accordance with this mission, the USBA sends players to the World Championships, Sudirman Cup (world mixed team championship), Thomas Cup and Uber Cup (world men's and women's team championships, respectively), World Junior Championships, and Pan American Games. Major U.S. competitions conducted by the USBA include the annual U.S. National Championships, U.S. Junior National Championships, and U.S. Senior National Championships, and the U.S. Open.
The USBA’s goals leading up to 1996 and beyond reflect its commitment to supporting U.S. badminton athletes in their quest for increased international success.
