Voltric 80
Model VT-80 · Lee Chong Wei, Peter Gade
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Voltric 80: Lee Chong Wei won the All England with it eight days after launch
Eight days from launch to the All England
Yonex released the Voltric 80 worldwide on March 5, 2011, and it won the All England eight days later. Lee Chong Wei, looking for more attacking power, as Yonex Japan put it, took it up in Birmingham and won all five of his matches in straight games, beating Lin Dan 21–17, 21–17 in the final for his second straight title. In the men’s doubles Mathias Boe, on the Voltric 80, and Carsten Mogensen, on the Voltric 70, beat Koo Kien Keat and Tan Boon Heong. Yonex Japan issued a downloadable poster for each win and a table of both finals by type of winning shot: Lee took 16 of his 42 points with smashes, to Lin Dan’s 11. Boe’s verdict, as Yonex reported it, was that the shaft’s rebound put real power into his smash.
Nanopreme and the thinnest Yonex shaft
Yonex’s release of February 21, 2011, sold one idea: the thinnest shaft in Yonex history, for steep, decisive smashes. Yonex credited it to Nanopreme, a material developed over five years with an American nanotechnology company, in which chemical groups on carbon nanotubes bond the carbon fiber to its epoxy resin, raising strength and rebound together. Its 2010 tests claimed the shaft cut air resistance by 3% and recovered 10% better, and that the racquet delivered 15% more hitting energy than earlier models. The frame carried the Tri-Voltage System already used on the Voltric 70: thicker sections at 10 and 2 o’clock and around the joint, slimmer sides, and tungsten at those three points to set the balance. Yonex made it in Japan in White/Cosmic Gold, 4U and 3U, at ¥22,000 before tax, for students, young adults and intermediate and advanced players, with a sales target of 20,000 a year. It rated the flex stiff, and its Japanese charts plot the balance well toward head-heavy.
Lee Chong Wei, Peter Gade and a teenage Axelsen
Yonex counted three straight titles for Lee on it. At the India Open on May 1 he beat Peter Gade 21–12, 12–21, 21–15, and Yonex Japan noted that Gade had started using the Voltric 80 that week; a week later Lee won the Malaysia Grand Prix Gold, his fifth title of 2011. In June he beat Gade again in the Indonesia Open final, 21–11, 21–7 in 31 minutes, with both men on the racquet. At the World Championships at Wembley in August, Yonex Japan’s opening-day report described Lee as a Voltric 80 user; he reached the final, which Lin Dan won 20–22, 21–14, 23–21. Yonex says Lee played the Voltric Z-Force from the Korea Open in January 2012. Yonex’s English player pages lagged both men, listing the Voltric 80 for Lee only from April 2011 and for Gade by August. In April 2011 Yonex also signed Viktor Axelsen, the reigning world junior champion, aged 17, to play the Voltric 80, and Yonex Japan reported him retaining his European junior title with it.
One color, one farewell edition
Yonex sold the standard Voltric 80 in one color, White/Cosmic Gold. Shops in Taiwan and the US also sold a red-and-white “Voltric 80 LTD” by early 2012, billed as a Yonex Open Japan 30th-anniversary racquet or a 2011 World Championship edition; no Yonex record of it is known. The edition with a name came at the end of Gade’s career. When he said goodbye at the Copenhagen Masters in December 2012, beating Lin Dan in his final exhibition, he played an all-white Voltric 80 made for the occasion and printed with his motto, “go with all your heart.” Yonex posted details of the Voltric 80 Peter Gade Limited Edition in February 2013 but gave no quantity; the edition, in what Yonex calls Crystal White, has its own page. Yonex’s player page had listed the Z-Force for Gade since March 2012. Above the Voltric 80 sat the Z-Force from March 2012; below it were the Voltric 70 and, from August 2011, the Flexible Voltric 60, which has its own page. In March 2015 the Voltric 80 E-tune, in Deep Red, took its place on Yonex Japan’s list. It has its own page.
A working racquet, no sales record yet
No verified sales of the Voltric 80 are recorded yet. It was a regular-production frame: Yonex Japan listed it from early 2011 until at least February 2014, its product page stayed up into 2015, and the E-tune had replaced it on the Japanese list by March 2015. It was played widely, on tour and in clubs, so used examples are the normal form. Two identity questions matter when sales do appear. The all-white Gade edition is a separate object from the white-and-gold standard frame, and a sale of one says nothing about the other. And a frame described as Lee’s or Gade’s match racquet needs its own documentation, because Yonex’s reports name the model, never a particular frame.
Fakes and look-alikes
No counterfeit specific to the Voltric 80 has been documented. It sold in the same years as the Voltric Z-Force, which was being copied within a year of its 2012 launch, so the usual Yonex checks apply. Confusion is the more common risk. The Voltric 80 E-tune shares the name but is a different, red frame with clip-on tuning parts, and a white racquet offered as a Voltric 80 may be the Gade edition or something else entirely. A Voltric 80 sold as a 2011 World Championships edition also needs proof: Yonex Japan’s commemorative racquet for those championships was a Nanospeed 9900, and no Yonex record of a Voltric 80 version is documented.
Lee’s 2011 and Gade’s farewell
Yonex Japan’s 25th-anniversary timeline of landmark racquets includes the Voltric 80, crediting the world-first Nanopreme with the thinnest shaft in Yonex history, and features Gade as its player. Coach Paul Stewart gave it five stars and called it the most outstanding racquet he had used in 34 years in badminton; a year later he still preferred it to the Z-Force for quick exchanges at the net. Doubles players kept it after the Z-Force arrived: Yonex lists Ayaka Takahashi and Gabrielle White on it at the December 2013 Superseries Finals, and Russia’s Vladimir Ivanov and Ivan Sozonov when they won the 2014 European title. A story repeated on fan sites has Yonex scouting a junior Kento Momota with a standard Voltric 80 at the 2011 All Japan Junior Championships. No Yonex or press source supports it. Momota won world junior bronze in 2011 and the title in November 2012, and Yonex Japan’s report of that title names no racquet.
Yonex’s item code is VT80, and the frame should be marked Made in Japan. The standard color is White/Cosmic Gold; all white (Yonex’s Crystal White) is the Peter Gade edition, and Deep Red with tuning parts is the Voltric 80 E-tune. Yonex’s global page listed 4U (80–84.9 g) with grip 4 or 5 and 3U (85–89.9 g) with grip 3, 4 or 5; Yonex Japan sold 4U in grip 5 and 3U in grips 4 and 5. Yonex rated the flex stiff, and the racquet is clearly head-heavy on Yonex’s charts. Yonex’s own checks: the production code on the cap above the handle is laser-engraved, the hologram sticker resists peeling, the O in YONEX is not wide and round, and the butt cap is Yonex’s green.
The Voltric 80 is the racquet of Lee Chong Wei’s 2011 season and of Viktor Axelsen’s first Yonex contract, and Gade’s all-white farewell frame is its one named edition. Buy on condition and identity: ask for photographs of the color, the Made in Japan marking and the cone code, and do not confuse it with the red E-tune. Treat any claim of match use by a named player, or any link to Kento Momota, as unproven without documentation.