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Shuttlecock in Europe This very popular Asian ballgame appeared in Europe before the 2nd world war, when a Chinese athlete performed a demonstration in the Olympic Games of Berlin in 1936. After shuttlecock was re-discovered for Europe by Peter von Rüden, a German engineer while he was travelling in China. He saw some people play it in a park. Some of them were 60 or 70 years old. He was fascinated by this sport. He was presented a ball and showed his friends how to play. In 1989 he got to know team play as well. Since that time his life is dedicated to popularising shuttlecock. On 1st September 1991 he founded FFC Hagen, the first European shuttlecock club. As a result of Peter von Rüden's popularising activity, several countries introduced shuttlecock eg. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland and Hungary. The first official Hungarian competition was held on 29th May 1993, organised by Butor Klára. Later other countries - Finland, France, Greece, and with a help of Hungary Serbia and Montenegro, Romania, Poland and Slovakia - joined to shuttlecock countries. International championships were begun to organise. The most important tournaments are "German Open" (first organised on November 25-26th 1994) and "Hungarian Open" first organised by Fehér János on 27 July - 2 August 1996. Finally, on 11th August 2003 delegates from Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Romania and Serbia founded the Shuttlecock Federation of Europe (S.F.E.), in Újszász (Hungary), that organised 1st European Shuttlecock Championship in October 2003 in Bochum (Germany). |