With neon lights on the floor and walls, pulsing electronic beats, and a glowing red shuttlecock bouncing back and forth, a Malaysian badminton court evokes a sci-fi movie set.
Shuttle in the Dark, a badminton hall in the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, was set up late last year by Inic Sport Management, a sports management company, to encourage people to take up the sport after two years of social restrictions because amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our initial goal was how can we encourage and gain back the interest of people to come back and play,” Inic Sport Management director Irina Inozemtseva said. “Not only those enthusiasts, but then as well, the new people who were not able to or never played badminton before.”
Photo: Reuters
Playing in a futuristic court presents an unusual challenge for athletes, as they have to adjust their eyes to the darkness to play, professional badminton coach Lee Yan Sheng said.
“With the lighting, somehow we are still able to hit it and then it requires better focus,” Lee said. “And it’s exciting. It’s different, but it’s still like playing normal” badminton, professional player Ho Yen Mei said.
Open to athletes of all levels, Shuttle in the Dark charges 180 ringgit (US$42.63) per hour to use the courts and rent their neon equipment.
A regular public court in Malaysia charges about 20 ringgit.
Taiwan’s men’s table tennis team won bronze on Saturday at this year’s International Table Tennis Federation World Team Table Tennis Championships in London, matching the country’s best-ever finish at the regular tournament. Consisting of Lin Yun-ju, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7, Feng Yi-hsin, Kuo Guan-hong, Hong Jing-kai and Hsu Hsien-chia, the team won bronze after losing 0-3 to Japan in the semifinals. In the opening match, 24-year-old Lin played the first game against world No. 3 Tomokazu Harimoto 11-5, but ultimately lost the next three closely contested games 9-11, 10-12 and 10-12. Feng then faced world No. 8 Sora Matsushima in
Lin Yun-ju on Thursday handed Taiwan two key victories as they advanced to the semi-finals of the ITTF World Team Table Tennis Championships Finals in London. The Taiwan men’s table tennis team beat Sweden 3-2 in five singles matches. The 24-year-old Lin, Taiwan’s top-ranked player at world No. 7 and nicknamed the “Silent Assassin,” opened the tie by defeating world No. 2 Truls Moregard 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 13-11) before clinching the deciding fifth match with a 3-0 (11-8, 11-9, 11-5) win over Anton Kallberg to hand his team the overall victory. Kuo Guan-hong put Taiwan up 2-0 with a 3-2 (4-11, 11-8, 8-11,
Taiwanese fire dancer Yang Li-wei advanced to the final of Britain’s Got Talent this weekend after receiving a Golden Buzzer during her live semi-final performance. Yang, a member of Taiwan’s Coming True Fire Group, awed judges and audiences with a high-intensity fire performance featuring flaming umbrellas, fire swallowing and spinning metal structures balanced with her legs. Judge Simon Cowell praised Yang as a star, while guest judge KSI reacted with amazement before pressing the Golden Buzzer, sending her to the finals. The dance group wrote on social media that the Golden Buzzer was “the highest honor” on the talent show, adding: “Twenty-three years
As Super Rugby fast approaches its playoff season it finds itself racing toward a reckoning with many issues that threaten the southern hemisphere tournament. A group of stakeholders met in the New Zealand city of Christchurch late last month to address problems that are making the future of the 31-year-old competition increasingly tenuous. The discussion was made more urgent by the decision by the owners of Moana Pasifika to fold the Auckland-based club for financial reasons. That followed the closure of the Melbourne Rebels at the end of the 2024 season, likewise because of financial difficulties. Problems addressed included player retention as more
RSS