Team GB star Chris Langridge insists he is on a mission to ‘make badminton in Britain big’ and hopes he and Marcus Ellis’ Olympic bronze medal can be instrumental in that.
Langridge and Ellis started playing in local clubs aged just 10 and six respectively and both have been vocal about their hopes to inspire the next generation of badminton players.
Over 450,000 adults play badminton once a week with a reported 4.4 million getting on court, be it in the garden, park, community hall or local leisure centre, at least once each.
But whilst a nationwide network of over 1,800 clubs host club nights each week, Langridge knows that a medal match at a Games is the best stage of all to show the UK what their sport is all about.
He said: “We’re proud that we’ve done this for our sport, it’s massive for badminton in our country and I hope all the guys back home can take something from this.
“I really want people to start playing, people to just go down their local club and have a game even if they are not going to go professional,” he said.
Langridge who has picked up plaudits for his humility in recent BBC interviews, in which he insisted he ‘wasn’t the best player but worked hard‘, also urged the British public to come and experience the buzz of live, top class badminton for real.
“Badminton is the fastest sport in the world, it’s not Formula 1. The lad we played in the semi final (Fu) hits the shuttlecock at over 400km/h so there’s no wonder we struggled to get it back but until people actually watch it they can’t understand.
“I want to make badminton in Britain big – I want more people to see it.”
