Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics

Badminton at the Games of the XXX Olympiad
Venue	Wembley Arena
Dates	28 July – 5 August
No. of events	5 (2 men, 2 women, 1 mixed)
Competitors	172

The badminton tournaments at the 2012 Olympic Games in London took place between 28 July and 5 August at Wembley Arena.

A total of 172 athletes competed in five events: men's singles, women's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles. The women's doubles tournament was marred by several disqualifications during the group stage for unethical play.

All of the gold medals were won by players from China. The Chinese team also collected two silvers and one bronze, to top the medal table with eight in total. Denmark finished in second place, with one silver and one bronze won. India and Russia won a medal in badminton for the first time.

Competition format

For the first time there was a combination of group play and knockout stages in the Olympic badminton tournament, following its introduction at the 2010 Youth Summer Olympics in Singapore.

All matches were the best of three games, with each game won by the first player to reach 21 points. If the score reached 20–20, the winner was the first player to lead by two points. If the score reached 29–29, the player who won the next point won the match.

The draw for the groups was held on 23 July 2012.

Qualification

Further information: Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Qualification

The Olympic qualification period was between 2 May 2011 and 29 April 2012, and the Badminton World Federation rankings list, published on 3 May 2012, was used to allocate spots. Nations could enter a maximum of three players. Three quota places if three players are ranked four or above, two if two players are ranked 16 or above and otherwise one quota place until the quota contingent of 38 is filled.

For each male player who qualifies in more than one discipline, an additional quota place in the men's singles becomes free. If no player from one continent can qualify, the best ranked player from this continent gets a quota place.

Women's doubles disqualifications

Further information: Badminton at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Women's doubles

On 1 August 2012, several two-player teams were disqualified from the competition for "not using one's best efforts to win a match" and "conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport" following matches the previous evening during which the pairs were accused of trying to lose in order to manipulate the draw.

Four teams were disqualified:

• Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang, playing for China
• Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na, playing for South Korea
• Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, playing for South Korea
• Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii, playing for Indonesia

Medal summary

Medal table

1	China	5	2	1	8
2	Denmark	0	1	1	2
3	Japan	0	1	0	1
	Malaysia	0	1	0	1
5	India	0	0	1	1
	Russia	0	0	1	1
	South Korea	0	0	1	1
Total		5	5	5	15

Medalists

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's singles	Lin Dan  China	Lee Chong Wei  Malaysia	Chen Long  China
Men's doubles	Cai Yun and Fu Haifeng  China	Mathias Boe and Carsten Mogensen  Denmark	Jung Jae-sung and Lee Yong-dae  South Korea
Women's singles	Li Xuerui  China	Wang Yihan  China	Saina Nehwal  India
Women's doubles	Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei  China	Mizuki Fujii and Reika Kakiiwa  Japan	Valeria Sorokina and Nina Vislova  Russia
Mixed doubles	Zhang Nan and Zhao Yunlei  China	Xu Chen and Ma Jin  China	Joachim Fischer Nielsen and Christinna Pedersen  Denmark