BWF World Championships

The BWF World Championships (formerly known as IBF World Championships, also known as the World Badminton Championships) is a tournament organized by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to crown the best badminton players in the world.

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 Olympic Games.

Location of the World Championships

The table below gives an overview of all host cities and countries of the World Championships. These include, New Delhi,Paris and London which are yet to hold their games.

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.
210px|thumb">
Countries that already hosted the Championships
Countries that will host the Championships

Future events:
*On December 17, 2006, Paris was awarded the 2010 Championships. [cite web|url=http://thestar.com.my/sports/story.asp?file=/2006/12/18/sports/16351538&sec=sports |title=Badminton: BWF spice things up |accessdate=2006-12-23]
*On December 15, 2007, London was awarded the 2011 Championships. [cite web|url=http://www.badmintonengland.co.uk/show_news.asp?section=0001000100110022&monthinview=2007/12/01&itemID=1281 |title=London awarded 2011 World Championships |date=2007-12-15 |accessdate=2007-12-15]

Past winners

So far, only 17 countries achieve at least a bronze medal in the tournament. They are nine countries in Asia, five countries in Europe, each respectively in Americas and Oceania. Africa is the only continent who does not win any medal in any previous tournament.

uccessful players & national teams

uccessful players

Several players have won gold medals in more than one category in a single holding of the World Championships, this include
# 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

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 Wijuno won it last for Indonesia.

Below is the list of the most ever successful players, since 3 gold medals. [ [http://www.badminton.de/WM_Statistik.946.0.html?&L=0 Die Individualweltmeisterschaften im Überblick] , Badminton.de]

Women's singles

Mixed doubles

References

External links

* [http://www.internationalbadminton.org/worldchampionshipsmain.asp BWF: World Championships]