The International Badminton Federation may have a small relief thanks to badminton's good performance in the Athens Games but it still worries its fate in the Olympics.

Badminton faces two crucial moments this year to decide its Olympic future as the IOC will vote in July to choose the 2012 Olympic program and meet again in October to see whether badminton competition can stay unchanged in the Olympic Games.

"The IOC evaluation for the 2004 Athens Olympic Games events has yet to finish. But I can say badminton left a good impression on the IOC and I expect good result in July evaluation," said newly elected IBF president Kang Young Joong from South Korea on Sunday.

According to IBF's TV audience research, the mixed doubles final between China and Britain on August 19, 2004, attracted a combined viewing audience of 80 million, including over five million in Britain.

The cumulative TV audience in China reached just under one billion throughout the Olympic badminton competition, the research said.

Now, the IBF is waiting for the July 8 evaluation, where the IOC members will vote by secret ballot on each of the 28 sports that were part of the Olympic program in Athens. The results of the vote will only be announced at the end of the proceedings.

If one or more sports is not admitted to be part of the Olympicprogramme because they do not obtain a majority (more that 50% of the votes), this sport will remain an Olympic sport but will not be on the program for the 2012 Games.

Although high audience figures may weigh in IOC's evaluation, CEO of the IBF Andrew Ryan admitted: "We all recognize that badminton is not yet a sport with global appeal in the sense that soccer, for example."

And an IBF official said on the annual meeting here Sunday that"badminton fared really well in Athens but one thing the IOC was not satisfied with was the number of participation in terms of countries and regions."

According to IBF deputy president Punch Gunalan, 32 countries and regions showed up in the badminton competition in Athens Olympic Games where about 200 countries and regions made their appearances.

Thus, the IBF made several changes to the qualification system of the 2008 Olympic Games in a bid to bring 50 teams into the Olympic competition.

"We are trying our best to let more teams into the Olympics," said Gunalan.

According to Gunalan, the total number of players in the Games will remain 172, the same as in Athens, but the places for men's and women's singles increase from 29 to 38 respectively and placesfor men's, women's and mixed doubles each drop from 19 pairs to 16.

"We shifted the balance between the singles and doubles in order to give chances for more countries and regions," Gunalan said.

The new regulations also state that one IBF member may have a maximum three players/pairs in an event as long as players/pairs are ranked 1 to 4 in the IBF rankings in that event. Otherwise, the member can only have two players/pairs.

Previously, the IBF member can have three players/pairs as longas they rank 1 to 16 in that event.

"We have made some changes in the qualification system for the 2008 Olympic Games and submitted to the IOC," the Malaysian said.

"But there is one problem, the IOC may not accept the changes. They may even eliminate the mixed doubles out of the Olympics," said Gunalan. "We really hope not."

"We will see whether our changes approved by the IOC in October, " he said.

Source: Xinhua