Badminton — it's an underrated sport that, given its quiet nature, is often viewed as a low-intensity event reserved for garden parties. 

But at the Olympics, it's a whole different story.

"Especially in big venues when it's really loud, I can't even hear my partner speaking sometimes. I can't hear the shuttle being hit," said American badminton player Vinson Chiu, who made his Olympic debut in Paris on Monday.

Though it's one of the five sports in which the United States has never won a medal, Olympic badminton matches are nothing to gawk at, often drawing spectators to their feet and eliciting wild choruses of "oohs" and "ahhs" between plays.

In the fourth daily episode of The Podium: An NBC Olympic and Paralympic podcast, titled "Day 4: Hear Badminton Roar," Chiu, fellow Olympian Howard Shu, and some of their fans in Paris describe what makes the sport unexpectedly enticing.

"What's not exciting about it?" one spectator asked. "It's very fast and exhilarating, and it's unique. It's not something you typically see in the [United] States."

Hear all of that and more on the latest edition of The Podium.

New episodes of The Podium will be released every day during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

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