They come from Beijing and Peshawar, Pingtung and St. Petersburg -- the one in Russia.

They show up at the small gym every Friday night, looking like a committee meeting of the United Nations. Upon closer inspection, their true identity is revealed: the Richmond Badminton Club, a nomadic group that has found a home at the Humphrey Calder Community Center on North Thompson Street.

Badminton?

"People ask, 'You play badminton competitively?'" said Baiju Ceyed, 40, a devotee of the game since he was a child growing up in a small village in India. "It is a surprise. But if they came and watched, they would see the spirit we have."

They'd see more than spirit. They'd see the cork-and-goosefeather shuttlecocks flying through the air like miniature missiles. When a lot of us think of badminton -- if we think of badminton -- we conjure images of a docile game played at backyard picnics.

Turns out, that's a distant cousin to the fast, fierce international version of the game played by this rich mix of serious players that includes Boris Reshko, 52, a consultant for Infineon from St. Petersburg, Russia.

Reshko, who lives in Glen Allen, this summer won the gold medal in the men's 50-and-over singles at the 2005 National Senior Olympics.

These guys are good.

"This is a passion," said a smiling Ceyed, a senior analyst at Capital One and one of the ringleaders of the Calder group. "I can give up anything but badminton."

Badminton is an ancient sport that takes its name from the home of a British duke but has its roots in places such as Greece and China. It has long been a popular game beyond U.S. borders, particularly in Asia, and in recent times has become an Olympic sport.

On Friday evenings at the Calder gym, the air is filled with the sound of squeaking sneakers and the thwack! of racquet meeting birdie. There are occasional grunts as players lunge for a shot and groans when they miss, but trash-talking is absent across the three courts of play.

"It's a very decent sport," said Yu-Cheng Shen, 40, an independent consultant in supply chain management and operations research from Pingtung, Taiwan, who first played in high school. "Very gentlemanly.

"But when you smash it, it gives you an adrenaline rush. It's like when you play basketball and you dunk it."

The ferocity of the game is most conspicuous: sweat-drenched players racing around the court, often viciously lashing the shuttlecock, demonstrating admirable hand-eye coordination and extraordinary reflexes.

But there is a cerebral side, too, as players try to move their opponents around, chesslike, before softly swatting the birdie so it drops into an open space barely on the other side of the net. Regular participants at Calder include an assortment of scientists, physicians and technology specialists.

Reshko's first game of badminton came in Russia many years ago on an outdoor court.

"I played a woman about 60," he said. "I was very physically fit, and she won. I was so much surprised."

He laughed. Instead of walking away from the sport, he embraced it.

"I began training," he said.

The Friday evening gatherings, which begin at 6 p.m., typically attract 12 to 20 players, who invite others to join them.