Badminton at the Commonwealth Games

Badminton at the Commonwealth Games

The first Commonwealth Games (originally called British Empire Games) was held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada in 1930.

Badminton made its debut at the 1966 8th Games in Kingston, Jamaica. 11 nations entered the badminton tournament for which there was a restriction of four men and four women from each country. This limited the number of players to only 54, but those 54 included some of the world’s best players.  It was the Malaysian men and the English women who were dominant, Angela Bairstow (England) was the most successful player taking the gold medal in the woman’s singles and mixed doubles with Roger Mills. With Iris Rogers she would take the silver medal in the woman’s doubles after losing to Helen Horton and Ursula Smith (England) in the final. The Malaysian Tan Aik Huang would win the gold medal in the men’s singles and doubles with Yew Cheng Hoe.

Angela Bairstow’s medals, gold for the woman’s singles and mixed doubles, silver medal for the woman’s doubles. These medals have been donated to the National Badminton Museum by Angela’s family.

Photo: – Geoff Hinder                                                                                                                                             Click on images to enlarge

Woman’s singles medal presentation L. to R.  Sharon Whittaker (Canada) silver medal, Angela Bairstow (England) gold medal and Ursula Smith (England) bronze medal.