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60 free Badminton trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This badminton trivia quiz starts with a shuttlecock's sixteen goose feathers and ends with a 426 km/h smash. The rules section covers games to 21 and the golden point at 30, service courts, the serve height, court width, net height, lets and why the doubles court is wider but shorter for serving. Then the strokes: clears, drives, tumbling net shots, the dreaded backhand clear and where the power really comes from. History questions trace the game from battledore and shuttlecock in British India, the Poona rules of 1873 and the Duke of Beaufort's house, to the first All England in 1899, the founding of the world federation in 1934 and the Olympic debut at Barcelona 1992. The team events include the Thomas, Uber and Sudirman Cups, and the players run from Rudy Hartono and Susi Susanti through Lin Dan, Lee Chong Wei, Taufik Hidayat, Gao Ling and Zhang Ning to Carolina Marín, Tai Tzu-ying and Viktor Axelsen. Every answer has been checked against the Wikipedia articles on badminton, the shuttlecock, its federation, tournaments and individual players, and each explanation adds one detail worth remembering. BrainPickle has separate quizzes on tennis, table tennis and the Olympics.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many times may each side strike the shuttle before it must cross the net?
Once
Play ends the moment the shuttle touches the floor or a fault is called by the umpire, service judge or the other side.
Q 02Under the rally-point rules adopted in 2006, how many points is a game played to?
21
Under the old system games went to 15 and only the server could score; a match is still the best of three games.
Q 03Under the 21-point scoring system, what happens if a game is tied 29-29?
A golden point decides it at 30
From 20-20 a side normally needs a two-point lead, but the cap at 30 stops games running forever.
Q 04Which stately home gave badminton its name?
The Duke of Beaufort's house in Gloucestershire
Nobody knows exactly why or when; a London toy dealer was already selling 'Badminton Battledore' in 1860.
Q 05Where did the modern game develop in the mid-19th century?
British India
Expatriate officers adapted an older racquet-and-shuttle pastime, and it was hugely popular by the 1870s.
Q 06What was the sport first called, after the Indian town where its rules were written in 1873?
Poona
Returning officers started a club in Folkestone by 1875, and early outdoor shuttles were sometimes weighted with lead.
Q 07What was the older game that badminton grew out of?
Battledore and shuttlecock
'Battledore' was simply an old word for a racquet, and games with shuttlecocks had been played across Eurasia for centuries.
Q 08In which English city did the Badminton Association of England officially launch the sport in 1893?
Portsmouth
The launch was at a house called 'Dunbar' on 13 September, using rules revised by J. H. E. Hart of the Bath club.
Q 09What is the world's oldest badminton tournament, first held in 1899?
The All England Open
Its first edition was doubles only; singles arrived in 1900, and it was the unofficial world championship until 1977.
Q 10Where was the world's first open badminton tournament held, in 1898?
Guildford
Its success prompted the All England the following year at London's Horticultural Halls.
Q 11In which year was the International Badminton Federation, now the BWF, founded?
1934
The nine founders were seven European associations plus Canada and New Zealand; India joined in 1936.
Q 12Where has the Badminton World Federation been headquartered since 2005?
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
It moved from Cheltenham in 2005 and took the name Badminton World Federation at a meeting in Madrid in 2006.
Q 13At which Olympics did badminton become a full medal sport?
Barcelona 1992
Four events were held, with singles and doubles for men and women; mixed doubles was added four years later.
Q 21What is a shuttlecock also commonly called?
A birdie
The 'shuttle' half of the name comes from a loom's back-and-forth shuttle; the 'cock' from the rooster-like feathers.
Q 22Roughly how much does a regulation shuttlecock weigh?
About 5 grams
The rules allow 4.75 to 5.5 grams; feather shuttles should be humidified for four hours before play so they do not go brittle.
Q 23Feathers for shuttlecocks are usually plucked from which birds?
Geese or ducks
The feathers should all come from the same wing, left or right, so the shuttle flies true.
Q 14Which country is the only one to sweep every Olympic badminton gold, which it did in 2012?
China
The runner-up nation across Olympic badminton history is a Southeast Asian archipelago.
Q 15Which European country has traditionally dominated men's badminton on its continent?
Denmark
The Danes became the first non-Asian nation to win the men's world team title in 2016.
Q 16What is the premier men's international team event, first held in 1948-49?
The Thomas Cup
Sir George Alan Thomas, inspired by tennis's Davis Cup and football's World Cup, presented the trophy in 1939.
Q 17Which country had won the Thomas Cup most often, 14 times, by the end of 2024?
Indonesia
Fourteen titles to China's twelve, though China did not enter until 1982; India became the sixth winner in 2022.
Q 18The women's world team championship is named after which British player who proposed it in 1950?
Betty Uber
She drew the lots for the first tournament in 1956-57 at Lytham St Annes; China has since won it 16 times.
Q 19What is the mixed-team world championship, held every two years since 1989, called?
The Sudirman Cup
Along with the two single-sex team cups, the Olympics and the World Championships, it is one of the sport's level-one events.
Q 20How many feathers does a traditional shuttlecock have?
16
They are goose or duck feathers set in a cork base, and makers avoid mixing left- and right-wing feathers because they are shaped differently.
Q 24What is the full width of a badminton court?
6.1 m
That is 20 feet; singles narrows it to 5.18 metres, while the length stays at 13.4 metres.
Q 25How high is a badminton net at its centre?
1.524 m
It rises to 1.55 metres at the posts, which sit on the doubles sidelines even during singles.
Q 26Below what height must the whole shuttle be when struck on a serve?
1.15 m
It replaced the older waist-and-racquet-head rule, and the shuttle must not bounce, unlike a tennis serve.
Q 27In singles, from which service court does a player serve when their score is even?
The right
Odd scores are served from the left, and server and receiver stand diagonally opposite.
Q 28What is unusual about the doubles court compared with the singles court?
It is wider but has a shorter service length
The long service line for doubles sits 0.76 metres inside the back boundary, a rule that confuses many beginners.
Q 29What is a let in badminton?
A stopped rally replayed with no change in score
It might be called when a shuttle from the next court lands on yours or the shuttle clips an overhead rail.
Q 30Roughly how much does a top-quality badminton racquet weigh, without strings or grip?
70 to 95 grams
Carbon-fibre composite replaced aluminium, which itself replaced wood; nanotubes are now added for durability.