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High speed badminton
Archer set to lose his smashing record
Simon Archer's world record 162mph smash is under threat following new tests at the Sudirman Cup world mixed team championships. China's doubles star Fu Haifeng has been timed at 207mph (332kph) while playing during this week's tournament in Beijing under tests being carried out by the IBF. Archer's record was recorded by racket and shuttle manufacturers Carlton in special clinical tests in the mid-1990s rather than on court in a match. For the first time at a major badminton event microwave sensors are recording speeds of smashes on the TV court. While Yonex All England doubles champion Fu (with Cai Yun) is the fastest so far, Denmark's singles star Kenneth Jonassen is not far behind at 186mph (298kph). Even five-times All England women's doubles women's doubles champion Huang Sui is up to 160mph (257kph) - which is faster than Andy Roddick's world-record tennis serve of 153mph (246kph) although the comparison here is between a smash and a serve rather than smash with smash. Alex Loccisano's Melbourne company are providing the testing with equipment used in cricket, tennis and golf. Already Fu Haifeng's smashing is near the limit for the equipment (217mph or 350kph) but Loccisano says: "Badminton can certainly consider itself the world's fastest racket sport. At this rate it will force speed testing technology to move quickly to keep up." The plan is to feed the speed data into the giant scoreboard at the Beijing Capital Gymnasium as well as on to the TV graphics to improve the 'wow' factor.
A news story from Badminton England.
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