Technology allows sports to go faster and faster, and the sport recently broke the absolute speed record, at over 500 km/h. Forget Formula 1, here’s what goes the fastest.
Professionalization and the constant search for performance in sport regularly lead disciplines to break records. These progressions most of the time come accompanied by technological improvements, whether in motor sports such as moto GP or Formula 1, or in other disciplines. We can particularly think of shoes with carbon soles which today lead marathon runners to dream of breaking the two-hour mark over the distance of 42.195 kilometers.
In racquet sports, this technological progression has transformed the disciplines over the last twenty years. From wooden rackets, tennis moved to aluminum frames, then carbon, with increasingly sophisticated strings. These developments have improved ball speeds, and even changed the game with greater countering ability for players.
But it is in badminton that the speed of exchanges has accelerated the most in recent years. This sport, one of the most practiced during PE classes, has in fact become the fastest sport in the world! There is indeed a move in badminton that outpaces all other sports, including Formula 1: the smash. A few months ago, the speed record for a badminton smash was broken by Indian Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, with 565 km/h recorded. This record was achieved during testing by the Yonex brand for its new racket.
The previous record, ten years old, was 493 km/h. This mark of more than 550 km/h places badminton well at the top of the ranking of the fastest sports. In fact, no other discipline even exceeds 400 km/h. Formula 1 is the second fastest sport, with a record of 397 km/h, for a machine certainly more imposing than a bad steering wheel. In non-motorized sports, golf manages to reach 350 km/h, but this is still more than 200 km/h slower than badminton.
A spectacular discipline, badminton will be present this summer at the Paris Olympic Games, at the Arena de la Porte de la Chapelle. The discipline has been present at the Games since 1992 in Barcelona, after two appearances in 1972 and 1988 as a demonstration sport. It is largely dominated by Asian nations, who won 106 of the 121 medals distributed. Played in singles or doubles, badminton is played in two winning sets of 21 points, exclusively indoors.