Badminton-France eyes Olympic push as long rebuild starts to pay off

Feb 26 : French badminton is targeting future Olympic success with Christo Popov's World Tour Finals victory and a landmark European team crown marking what officials believe could be a potential turning point for the sport in the country.

Popov won the biggest title of his career in December while the French men's team stunned traditional powerhouses Denmark at last week's continental championships - breakthroughs the French Badminton Federation's technical director Cyrille Gombrowicz said were decades in the making.

Since badminton's introduction at the Olympics in 1992, the sport has been dominated by Asian countries, with Denmark the only European nation to feature in the top eight of the overall medal table and France yet to step on the podium.

But Gombrowicz believes they now have a proper launchpad with rising talents including Popov, Alex Lanier and the mixed doubles pair of Thom Gicquel and Delphine Delrue who captured the nation's first-ever Super 1000 title in Indonesia last year.

"The next Olympic cycle after the 2028 Los Angeles Games may be the best period for French players," Gombrowicz told Reuters.

"Step by step, our goal is to enter the group of the world's top eight badminton nations."

'CULTURE OF PERFORMANCE'

France's badminton resurgence has been catalysed by a significant expansion of its talent base, with registered players growing from 3,000 in the late 1970s to about 250,000 today.

"Over a long period of time, we had to develop a culture of performance," Gombrowicz said.

"That was a challenge, but we built it. One indicator of this growth is the number of clubs. Today, we have more than 2,000. In the beginning there were maybe around 100."

Mass participation gradually led to the establishment of a