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He bent down to pick up a shuttlecock and never got up again. A man collapsed and passed away on the spot in the middle of a badminton session with his friends, according to Astro Awani. Taiping District Police Chief Osman Mamat reported that 47-year-old Lim Thian Meng was confirmed dead at the scene. According to Lim’s friends, they met up to play badminton at around 6.30pm. At around 8.30pm, Lim bent down to pick up a shuttlecock before passing it to a teammate. Immediately after, he collapsed and lost consciousness right there on the badminton court. His shocked friends...

At the medal ceremony for the badminton men’s doubles on Saturday, the winning players watched a flag being raised, but it was not their own. They sang as a song reverberated in the mostly empty venue, but it was not their anthem. For decades, politics has been getting in the way of Olympic glory for Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that China claims as its territory. Rather than using its formal name, the Republic of China, or even Taiwan, the island competes in international sporting events as Chinese Taipei, under a resolution passed by the International Olympic Committee. The terms prohibit...

Eight women's doubles badminton players from China, South Korea, and Indonesia were disqualified today after throwing matches in order to manipulate future match-ups. After the four women's pairs had qualified for the quarterfinals of the tournament, they began intentionally losing games in order to dictate a more favorable match-up in the next round. The disqualified players included the world champions from China — Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, as well as the bronze-medal favorites Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min Jung of South Korea. So why in the world would they lose on purpose? Basically, they wanted to avoid playing the...

/begin my translation Chinese PM on an Early Morning Photo-op Visiting Chinese PM Wen Jiabao doing his early morning exercise of jogging, taking a shot at baseball and playing badminton around 6 AM, May 29, at an exercise field on a flood basin of Han River near Apgujong, Seoul. /end my translation

BIRMINGHAM: Malaysia will contest for only one title in the All-England badminton championships at the National Indoor Arena here today. In yesterday’s semi-finals, veterans Choong Tan Fook-Lee Wan Wah continued their impressive run to reach the men’s doubles final. Tan Fook-Wan Wah ended the gallant run of compatriots Mohd Fairuzizuan Mohd Tazari-Lin Woon Fui with a sensational 15-8, 15-7 win in just 33 minutes. Mohd Zakry Abdul Latif-Gan Teik Chai failed to make it an all-Malaysian final when they squandered a 14-5 lead in the first game to lose 14-17, 9-15 to Denmark’s Jens Eriksen-Martin Lundgaard Hansen. Tan Fook-Wan Wah...

This Olympic Shuttlecock is no Poppycock DAVE BARRY ATHENS -- They don't play badminton at the Olympics the way you play it at home. The way you play it at home is, once every three to six years, usually on the Fourth of July, you dig out your cheesy drugstore badminton set, which is buried deep in the closet with your cheesy drugstore croquet set, the two sets having intermingled over the years to form a new sport, ''crominton,'' or maybe ``badquet.'' You spend the next hour and a half trying to assemble the poles and untangle the net, which...