Wednesday, 27 July 2016

Badminton at the Rio 2016 Olympics: All you need to know

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The sport in brief: Badminton became an Olympic sport in 1992. There are five gold medals on offer: men's and women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles. Matches are best-of-three games (first to 21 points wins a game) and competitions begin with round-robin groups before progressing to knockout rounds.
Anything new for Rio 2016? The instant review system will be used - it was introduced to the sport in 2013, and is similar to Hawk-Eye in tennis. A random draw for the doubles knockout stages has been introduced - there was controversy at London 2012 when eight players were kicked out after being accused of trying to manipulate the draw.
British prospects: Husband and wife mixed doubles pair Chris and Gabby Adcock are Great Britain's best hope of a medal. They won the World Superseries Finals last year, and are ranked seventh in the world.
I didn't know that: China may be the dominant force in the sport but Britain can boast Olympic champions of a sort. Gillian Gilks and Derek Talbot won the mixed doubles in 1972 when badminton was a demonstration sport.

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