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Badminton secured until 2016 Olympics

Indonesia heaved a sigh of relief after the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Secretary-General, Stuart Borrie, confirmed that the shuttlecock sport would still feature in the Olympic Games, at least until 2016

Primastuti Handayani (The Jakarta Post)
Beijing
Tue, August 19, 2008

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Badminton secured until 2016 Olympics

Indonesia heaved a sigh of relief after the Badminton World Federation (BWF) Secretary-General, Stuart Borrie, confirmed that the shuttlecock sport would still feature in the Olympic Games, at least until 2016.

Speaking to journalists late Sunday, Borrie expressed his confidence that badminton would remain an interesting sport to watch at the Olympics, although, he said, there were some 33 points for evaluation.

"Among the items that we need to improve is wider television and media coverage, which is very important. We can start from badminton shows on TV where they broadcast stars and sporting heroes," he said.

According to Borrie, the television rating for badminton increased during the Olympic Games from 24th in Sydney 2000 to 14th in Athens 2004.

"Badminton is a fantastic sport to watch. Even the IOC (International Olympics Committee) President Jacques Rogge was impressed with the sport's speed and agility," he said.

However, IOC member Rita Subowo, who is also the Indonesia's National Sports Council (KONI) chairwoman, said that the staging of the sport still needed improvement.

"The scoring system now is already good. But the packaging of the sport needs to be more attractive," she said.

"I talked to the BWF officials and I suggested they start with a reform in the athletes' uniform. The jerseys used by shuttlers are so boring," she added.

She compared the clothes used by Rudy Hartono in the 1980s when winning the All England eight times, to today's Olympics. There have been some changes in the women's costume design by making skirts and sleeveless shirts as for the men players.

Badminton has become the main gold medal hope for countries like Indonesia and Malaysia, which are not superior in individual sports like track and field, swimming and gymnastics.

Indonesia has always won golds since badminton first featured in 1992.

Borrie said the decision whether badminton would still be included at the 2020 Games would be taken in 2013.

He also said another important thing to improve was the development program for the sport.

"We have 16 shuttlers from South America, the eastern part of Europe and Africa who qualified to compete at this Olympics but two could not get to the Olympics. They trained at our world training center in Saarbrucken, Germany," he said.

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