<P> Each side may only strike the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net . Play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor or if a fault has been called by the umpire, service judge, or (in their absence) the opposing side . </P> <P> The shuttlecock is a feathered or (in informal matches) plastic projectile which flies differently from the balls used in many other sports . In particular, the feathers create much higher drag, causing the shuttlecock to decelerate more rapidly . Shuttlecocks also have a high top speed compared to the balls in other racquet sports . The flight of the shuttlecock gives the sport its distinctive nature . </P> <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 competitions dominated by China . Since 1992, badminton has been a Summer Olympic sport with four events: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, and women's doubles, with mixed doubles added four years later . 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>

Where did badminton originate from an old and similar game select one