Badminton Basics

The Tokyo Olympic badminton competition will take place July 24 through Aug. 2 and feature five tournament-style events:

  • Men's singles
  • Women's singles
  • Men's doubles
  • Women's doubles
  • Mixed doubles

All the events begin with a preliminary stage in which competitors are divided into groups and each player or doubles pair plays everyone else in their group. The 16 group winners in the singles and eight best pairs in the doubles qualify for the knockout stage of the competition, which will eventually decide the winners of the medals.

There will be a total of 172 competitors (86 men, 86 women) in the five events of men's singles (38 players), women's singles (38 players), men's doubles (16 pairs), women's doubles (16 pairs), mixed doubles (16 pairs).

The Badminton World Federation (BWF) rankings list to be published on June 15, 2021 – based on results from April 29, 2019, to March 15, 2020 – will be used to name an initial 38 men's and 38 women's singles players as well as all 48 doubles teams for the men's, women's and mixed competitions.