Beijing 2008: Your Chance to See the World's Finest Badminton Players

The Olympics are not good for much, but one thing they are great at is showcasing backyard sports being played at the highest level.

I always thought, as a kid, that I had to be the finest whiffleball pitcher ever to throw a sidearm submarine sinker. Nobody could hit it, not even my older brother. I would come to find out years later, way after my prime, there is actually a professional whiffleball league with uniforms, travelling teams, and a world series and everything. 

I am sure I missed my calling.

Every four years the Summer Olympic Games come around and remind me of my unrealized potential.

I know, it will be really difficult to pull yourself away from ESPN's newest soap opera starring Brett Favre long enough to watch a match, but I recommend you try. Then almost drown yourself in the bathtub in a cry for help.

This year's Badminton coverage features made-for-television radar guns instantly flashing the speed of serves, volleys, and pitches to the sporting public around the world, but few viewers could name the world's fastest racket sport. The title belongs to badminton.

The flight of the shuttlecock (insert dirty joke here), a missile of cork and goose feather that players volley across the net, has been recorded at speeds of 260 kilometres per hour. That's like 721 mph if my math is correct.

Speed, agility, lightning-fast reflexes, and short shorts are essential to the game. Add stamina, too - players have been known to cover more than six kilometres in a single match. I am certain that some of these athletes could play wide receiver for the USC Trojans if only they didn't search shipping containers leaving the mainland.

The world's greatest shuttlecock slammers have gathered in Beijing for a proverbial orgy of sweaty acrobatic athleticism.

A badminton match comprises the best of three games.

A coin is tossed before the first game, and the winner of the toss may serve first or pick an end of the court. I knew American football didn't invent that. 

Points can be scored against the serve and the winning team needs to score 21 points to win. At the end of each match the losing team must chug as many beers as points they lost by. That might be fraternity rules. I don't think they observe that rule in the Olympics. 

In doubles matches, a team has only one serve instead of two.

Olympic badminton consists of five events - men's singles and doubles, women's singles and doubles, and mixed doubles. Each involves a single-elimination tournament, with the top eight players or pairs seeded.

My men's singles favorite is Simon Santoso, the Indonesian phenom who must avenge his recent loss to Sony Dwi Kuncoro. In mixed doubles I really want to see the Danish team of Thomas Laybourn and Kamilla Rytter Juhl.

Badminton is just the tip of the iceberg. Over the next week I will be enlightening and not entertaining you with descriptions and predictions of the world's greatest backyard sports.