Badminton galore
By Shen Yang



A brief history of badminton

The invention of badminton dates back at least two thousand years to the game of battledore and shuttlecock played in ancient Greece, India and China. A surprisingly long history for one of the Olympics newest sports! Badminton took its name from Badminton House in Gloucestershire, the home of the Duke of Beaufort, where the sport was played in the last century. By coincidence, Gloucestershire is now the base for the International Badminton Federation.

The IBF was founded in 1934 with nine members --Canada, Denmark, England, France, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland and Wales. The USA joined four years later. Membership grew steadily over the following years with a surge in new members after badminton's Olympic debut at Barcelona. As the sport's development program grows, the current 130 members are expected to increase further.

The first major IBF tournament was the Thomas Cup (world men's team championships) in 1948. Since then, the number of world events has increased to seven, with the addition of the Uber Cup (ladies' team), World Championships, Sudirman Cup (mixed team), World Juniors, World Grand Prix Finals and the World Cup. The World Cup invitational event started in 1981 and is organized by the International Management Group (IMG). The World Cup series is due to end in 1997 and the IBF is considering organizing exhibition matches featuring the world's top players to replace the World Cup.

China won the badminton Sudirman Cup to the overwhelming ovation of home fans, fulfilling a "grand slam" with Thomas and Uber Cups already in hands.

The hosts swept last rival Indonesia 3-0 to lift the Cup for a record fifth time in the Beijing Capital Gymnasium on May 15. They have won the 1995, 1997, 1999 and 2001 events in a row but lost the trophy two years ago to South Korea.

China will also make history as the first team to hold the three trophies at the same time. "By holding all three cups, I believe we have made badminton history," China's head coach Li Yongbo said.



Winning by integral superiority

It's the integral superiority that grants the Chinese Sudirman Cup this time. There are 21 world's champions in the Chinese team. And thus experts say that if there was an international united team, it would still not be an easy task for the united team to defeat the Chinese.

For the time being, badminton doesn't develop well in most countries. The team of Indonesia and the team of Denmark did not forge real threats because their feeble women's items. And the Korean squad is becoming older and suffers from the temporal shortage of young shuttlers. Under Chinese national system, a lot of promising young shuttlers are rounded up to have long term focused training in the Chinese national team and are sent out to experience the world's major tournament. It can be concluded that not a single country and area can match China in terms of cultivating a sport.



The line-up in men's singles has been formed

The new generation of Chinese men's singles shuttlers, with Lin Dan and Bao Chunlai as their representatives, have nowadays secured their position in the international realm of badminton. Ranked high in the world, they have been eliminated early in the Athens Olympics with bad performances. The major reason for that was they had not been mature. But in the Surdiman Cup, Lin Dan struggled with the Olympic Champion Indonesian Taufik for nearly one hour and whitewashed the opponent at a straight 2-0, which showed great advances in his mental strength, self-control and experience.

Men's doubles is for a long time the soft place of the Chinese team. But the situation changed after the appearances of Cai Yun/Fu Haifeng and Sang Yang/Zheng Bo. Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng even have won consecutively in the Genman Open and All England this year. Doubtlessly, all these shuttlers will constitute the line-up in the Beijing Olympics.



Women's items: problems exist under prosperity

The women's squad in the Chinese badminton team now has an abundance of talents. But such advantage has also limited the development of the women's squad. For the need of matches, the coaches dare not practice young shuttlers freely. Zhang Ning is now 30; Gao He and Yang Wei are both 26. They are the kingpins in this Sudiman Cup. But we must put a query on whether they can carry on until 2008.

The biggest problem the women's squad is facing is that there isn't a young promising shuttler like Lin Dan. What's more; according to some experts in the field of Chinese badminton, some women shuttlers in the national team should still reinforce their basic skills. Generally speaking, it takes a young shuttler 5-8 years to become mature. Without years of struggles, no one can stand the competition in the realm of badminton.

Consequently, how to grant the young shuttlers chances of matching in major matches and how to improve their basic skills are the urgent task for the Chinese badminton at present. For that reason, the principal coach of Chinese badminton team Li Yongbo said, "We will expedite the cultivations of young generations and soon good successors will come."



Vocabulary
sterility 不育
potency 性欲
lymphoma 淋巴瘤
mercury 汞

Health Garden

Hair dye poses little cancer risk
染发不会致癌
A review of nearly 40 years of research suggests that hair dye poses little or no risk of cancer, as some fear. The result shows there is no effect of personal hair dye use on the risk of numerous types of cancer, including bladder, breast, skin, leukemia and lymphoma. Some previous studies found increased cancer risks for certain kinds of hair dye -- permanent rather than semi-permanent, and darker rather than lighter colors.

Man should blame mother for baldness
男子秃顶与母亲有关
Beginning with receding hairlines, every second man suffers from hair loss to some degree, and it has always been suspected that hereditary factors are important in causing hair loss. The findings are that: The gene for the androgen receptor lies on the X chromosome. Men always inherit the X chromosome from their mother. In many cases men therefore take after their grandfather on their mother's side rather than their father.

Sunshine cancer cure
适当日光浴可治疗癌症
A little sun exposure, like 15 minutes a few times a week with no sunscreen, boosts your Vitamin D level enough to protect you from many types of cancer. Animal and epidemiological studies are suggesting that sufficient vitamin D may prevent or even treat many cancers such as lymphoma, colon, prostate, skin, and lung cancer. Vitamin D has the nickname the "sunshine vitamin" because the skin makes it from ultraviolet rays.

Shark fin may cause sterility
吃多鲨鱼翅可致不育
Shark fin soup is a popular dish for most Guangdong residents since it is considered capable of increasing potency. Yet an international wildlife protection organization warned eating too much shark fin can cause sterility in men because of mercury and other heavy metals contamination and the risk to men is much higher than women. It can also cause central nervous system problems and kidney diseases.