Badminton

Gail Emms and Nathan Robertson won the silver medal in Athens 2004. At Sydney 2000, Simon Archer and Joanne Goode had secured Bronze.

Form
Britains best hope for a medal in 2008 again seem to be in the Mixed Doubles event, where there are currently three pairs ranked in the top 10. Robertson & Emms won the Commonwealth Games title in Melbourne, March 2006. Robertson & Emms also won the World Championship in Madrid, September 2006, beating another English pair Anthony Clark and Donna Kellogg in the final.

In the Men's Doubles, Anthony Clark and Robert Blair won Bronze in Melbourne and Silver in Madrid, but are currently ranked 6 in the World. Women's Doubles pair, Gail Emms and Donna Kellogg also won Bronze in Melbourne and are currently ranked 10 in the World. In the singles events, the highest ranked lady is Commonwealth Champion Tracey Hallam (17), whilst Andrew Smith is also ranked 17 for the Men.

Qualification

Qualification for Beijing will be primarly from the IBF ranking system for the period 1 May 2007 to 1 May 2008. It will provide all 16 pairs in each doubles event and 38 of 64 athletes in each singles event. The host nation (People's Republic of China) shall be entitled to enter 2 players in total, but more than 2 players are permitted if they all qualified under qualifying regulations.

What to watch

We didn't see any Badminton in Athens, so preliminary games are on our Olympic Experience list for 2008. It is also on one Medal Chances list so we will also hope to get tickets for the session when the Mixed Doubles Final is to be played.