Paintball... a Sport?

[LittMag]

Hey, they're considering cutting Baseball from the Olympics!

Back on track. Badminton was not an olypic sport until 1992, it first became a demonstration sport at the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany, and an exhibition sport in 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. At the Games in Barcelona, Spain, 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.

Paintball was not even around when Badminton became a demonstration sport in the olympics. It isn't close to being an established sport in most of the world.

To all those knocking badminton as a sport, go and find a video clip on Kazaa or something of an olympic match or an international competition. Comparing tennis's 1985 Wimbledon title match with the 1985 World Badminton Championship (The tennis match went four sets, 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4. The badminton went three games, 14-18, 15-10, 15-8)
Tennis Badminton
Time 3:45 1:16
Ball/shuttle in play 18 minutes 37 minutes
Rallies 299 146
Shots 1004 1972
Shots per rally 3.4 13.5
Distance covered 3 kilometres 6 kilometres

That's twice the distance covered in 1/3 of the time.

[aaron_mag]

Did you guys check out that video that Miscue put up? Holy cow! Talk about diving, and moving. How in the heck could they hit the ball back accurately after diving like that????? Amazing.

[845]

The guy looked funny when he won.

[j.t.]

[Miscue]

If I remember correctly, badminton has faster rallies than table tennis.

How he can hit it back:

Basically, the only shot he has that will have a chance in hell of hitting the table is a lob shot.

The attacker is putting a TON of topspin on the ball (as well as side spin), so basically all the defender has to do is some aiming to compensate for attacker's spin... and touch the ball with an open angled racquet... and the spin will make the ball jump vertically... and lob. Of course he has to get lucky as heck too... which if you noticed he barely made it on the table a couple times. Great skill = lucky more often. Except for the diving part... those kind of shots they have practiced 10,000+ times.

I wish that video was better... it's pretty good but it's hard to see the sheer power that they put into the ball.

-AO's resident table tennis freak.

More good ones:

http://tabletennis.about.com/library/media/video/LeszekKucharskivsChenXinhua87.rm

http://tabletennis.about.com/library/media/video/YooNamKyuvsJanOveWaldner89.rm

http://tabletennis.about.com/library/media/video/LiBunHuivsQiaoHong91.rm

http://tabletennis.about.com/library/media/video/WangLiqinvsJorgenPersson97.rm

http://tabletennis.about.com/library/media/video/MikaelAppelgrenvsSeijiOno85.rm

http://tabletennis.about.com/library/media/video/CookePreanAppelgrenWaldner92.rm

Badminton Movie:

http://realsmash.tripod.com/Badminton-AllEnglandMDHigh.mpg

Chess Movie (animated GIF):

Look close... it's really animated.

[SaS]

i actually didn't know Badminton was an olympic sport...

I didn't really say one way or another(sport or not) for any of the sports i mentioned... or at least i tried not to

I wasn't trying to badmouth any sport either...

my personal opinion(that i tried not to express in the writing) is that paintball is a sport at some levels(tournament play... hyperball, x-ball, and so on) and thus, is everything(or near to it... game, hobby, etc) at various other levels of play... which just happens to be the same way with other sports (there's Badminton, Olympic play as well as playing in a friends backyard)
...know what, i guess i did say my oppinion in the first writing

I used forest gump as an example for a commen visual aspect... not that tom hanks was physically hitting anything...

but hey, the triatholon(is it called that? suddenly i'm not too sure) uses rifles... different grain combinations with the ammunition, scope set-ups, etc...