<P> The game developed in British India from the earlier game of battledore and shuttlecock . European play came to be dominated by Denmark but the game has become very popular in Asia, with recent competition dominated by China . Since 1992, badminton has been a Summer Olympic sport with five events: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles, and mixed doubles . At high levels of play, the sport demands excellent fitness: players require aerobic stamina, agility, strength, speed, and precision . It is also a technical sport, requiring good motor coordination and the development of sophisticated racquet movements . </P> <P> Games employing shuttlecocks have been played for centuries across Eurasia, but the modern game of badminton developed in the mid-19th century among the British as a variant of the earlier game of battledore and shuttlecock . ("Battledore" was an older term for "racquet".) Its exact origin remains obscure . The name derives from the Duke of Beaufort's Badminton House in Gloucestershire, but why or when remains unclear . As early as 1860, a London toy dealer named Isaac Spratt published a booklet entitled Badminton Battledore--A New Game, but no copy is known to have survived . An 1863 article in The Cornhill Magazine describes badminton as "battledore and shuttlecock played with sides, across a string suspended some five feet from the ground". </P> <P> The game may have originally developed among expatriate officers in British India, where it was very popular by the 1870s . Ball badminton, a form of the game played with a wool ball instead of a shuttlecock, was being played in Thanjavur as early as the 1850s and was at first played interchangeably with badminton by the British, the woollen ball being preferred in windy or wet weather . </P> <P> Early on, the game was also known as Poona or Poonah after the garrison town of Pune, where it was particularly popular and where the first rules for the game were drawn up in 1873 . By 1875, officers returning home had started a badminton club in Folkestone . Initially, the sport was played with sides ranging from 1 to 4 players, but it was quickly established that games between two or four competitors worked the best . The shuttlecocks were coated with India rubber and, in outdoor play, sometimes weighted with lead . Although the depth of the net was of no consequence, it was preferred that it should reach the ground . </P>

Where was the game of badminton first played
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