Howard Bach is an American badminton player, born on February 22, 1979 in Saigon, Vietnam. He came to the United States at the age of two, when his father Cam Sen Bach moved from Vietnam to San Francisco with his family in 1982. Howard Bach, who lives in Orange County, California at present, completed his bachelor’s degree in finance from Cal-State Fullerton College.
Howard Bach was brought into the sport by his father, who once had Olympic aspirations himself. At the age of five, Howard Bach started training under his father’s guidance at the Golden Gate YMCA in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. After eleven years of intensive training, he moved to Colorado Springs at the age of sixteen, to train at the U.S. Olympic Site.
In 2001, Howard Bach won his first U.S. National Men's Doubles Championship, a title which he won in 2002 and 2004 as well. In 2003, he became the U.S. National Singles Champion. In the same year he continued his success by winning the gold medal at the Pan Am Games. In 2004, he represented his country at the Athens Olympics, where he partnered Kevin Qi Han in the doubles event.
Howard Bach began 2005 on a promising note by winning the Men's Doubles Copenhagen Masters. He continued this success by winning the men's doubles event in the World Championship held at the Arrowhead Pond Arena in Anaheim, California. Howard Bach and his partner Tony Gunawan won the final 15-11, 10-15, 15-11, against the Indonesian pair Candra Wijaya and Sigit Budiarto. With this win, the American duo made history, as it was the first ever medal for the United States of America in an Olympic or world championship event. In fact, no American badminton player had even surpassed the round of 16 in either of these events. For this feat, Howard Bach and Tony Gunawan were named the team of the year by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC).
In the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Howard Bach teamed up with Bob Malaythong in the men’s doubles event. They made it to the quarterfinals by knocking off Chris Dednam and Roelof Dednam of the Republic South Africa.
Howard Bach promotes the sport of badminton in the United States in several ways, and has participated in a commercial with a group of other sporting stars to encourage and motivate Americans to take up the sport.
