Official logo until 2006
The BWF World Championships (formerly known as IBF World Championships, also known as the World Badminton Championships) is a badminton tournament sanctioned by Badminton World Federation (BWF). The tournament offers the most ranking points, together with Summer Olympic Games.[1] The winners will be crowned as the "World Champions" and awarded gold medals.[2] However, it does not offer any prize money.[3]
The tournament started in 1977 and was held once every three years until 1983. However, the IBF faced difficulty in hosting the first two events as the World Badminton Federation (which later merged with the IBF to form one badminton federation) hosted the same tournament a year after the IBF World Championships with the same goals. Started 1985, the tournament became bi-annual and played once every two years until 2005. Starting 2006, the tournament was changed to an annual event on the BWF calendar with the goal to give more chances for the players to be crowned as official "World Champions". However, the tournament will not be held once every four years to give way to the Summer Olympic Games.
Location of the World Championships
The table below gives an overview of all host cities and countries of the World Championships. The most recent games were held in Jakarta. The number in parentheses following the city/country denotes how many times that city/country has hosted the championships. From 1989 to 2001 the world championships were held immediately after the Sudirman Cup at the same location.
Host country of the World Championships, these include 2014 event in Copenhagen, Denmark
Past winners
The map shown the countries which at least achieve a bronze medal during the tournament
So far, only 20 countries have achieved at least a bronze medal in the tournament: ten in Asia, eight in Europe, one in North America and one in Oceania. Africa is the only continent that has not won a medal.
At the age of 18, Ratchanok Inthanon became the youngest winner of a singles title at the Championships.[4] Ratchanok was less than 3 months older than Jang Hye-ock was when she won the women's doubles title at the 1995 Championships.[5]
Successful players & national teams
Successful players
Several players have won gold medals in more than one category in a World Championship; this includes:
Lene Køppen, 1977, mixed doubles and women's singles
Christian Hadinata, 1980, men's doubles and mixed doubles
Park Joo-bong, 1985, men's doubles and mixed doubles, 1991, men's doubles and mixed doubles
Han Aiping, 1985, women's singles and doubles- Ge Fei, 1997, women's doubles and mixed doubles
- Kim Dong-moon, 1999, men's doubles and mixed doubles
- Gao Ling, 2001, women's doubles and mixed doubles
- Zhao Yunlei, 2014 & 2015, women's doubles and mixed doubles
From 1977 up to 2001, the medals were usually divided among five countries, namely China, Korea, Denmark, Indonesia, Malaysia. However, in 2003, the winners included seven countries and in 2005 the medal board contained a record high of ten countries.
Tony Gunawan also bears the distinction of winning a gold medal in Men's Doubles, representing two different countries, 2001 partnering with Halim Haryanto for Indonesia and in 2005 partnering with Howard Bach to give the United States its first medal in the competition.
The 2005 edition also brought new faces in the mixed doubles event which had been dominated by China and Korea since 1997. With the retirement of defending champions and two time winners Kim Dong-moon/Ra Kyung-min (Korea), Nova Widianto/Lilyana Natsir won Indonesia's first mixed doubles gold since 1980 when Christian Hadinata/Imelda Wiguna won it last for Indonesia.
Below is the list of the most successful players ever, with 3 or more gold medals.[6]
MS: Men's singles; WS: Women's singles; MD: Men's doubles; WD: Women's doubles; XD: Mixed doubles
Successful national teams
Below is the gold medalists shown based by category and countries after the 2013 Championships. China has been the most successful in the World Championships ever since its inception in 1977. They were the only country ever to achieve a shutout of the medals which they did in 1987, 2010 and 2011.
BOLD means overall winner of that World Championships
- ^1 China and Korea are tied with two gold medals. However, Korea won two silver medals and China won none, thus Korea became the overall winner.
- ^2 China won on superior of silver medal of four silver medals to Indonesia one, thus, China became overall winner.
- ^3 China won on superior of silver medal of two silver medals to none, thus, China became overall winner.
Men's singles
Women's singles
Men's doubles
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
Medal table
Medal distribution
Men's singles
Women's singles
Men's doubles
Women's doubles
Mixed doubles
References
External links
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2015 BWF World Championships
England
Sweden
Spain
Japan
Thailand
United States
Malaysia
Chinese Taipei
India
Netherlands
Scotland
Hong Kong
Germany
France
New Zealand
Vietnam
