HISTORY LESSON: The sport originally was called Poona in India before a net was added and the game took its current name in the 1870s in England. The United States actually had some of the best players in the world during the 1950s and '60s, including Judy Devlin Hashman, who won 50 major championships 1954-67.
Badminton was a demonstration sport in 1972 before becoming an official medal sport 20 years later. It became a professional sport in 1980 when the International Badminton Federation established the World Grand Prix Circuit. The Grand Prix finals have a purse of $350,000.
WORLD'S BEST: China appears to be the country to beat, with top-ranked players in men's and women's singles and women's doubles.
China has three of the world's top-five men. Lin Dan enters as the top player, Chen Hong is ranked second and Bao Chunlai is fourth. Malaysia's Lee Chong Wei won a singles gold medal July 4 at the Malaysian Open, the last major event before the Olympics.
The top three women's players are from China. Ruina Gong is ranked No.1, Ning Zhang is second and Mi Zhou is third. The Chinese women's doubles team of Jiewen Zhang and Wie Yang also is No.1.
Denmark's Jonas Rasmussen and Lars Paaske are the top men's doubles team. In mixed doubles, Korea has two of the top three teams. Kyung Min Ra and Dong Moon Kim are the top-ranked team, and Jung Hyo Lee and Yong Hyun Kim are third.
U.S. BEST: Men's doubles players Kevin Han and Howard Bach were the only Americans to qualify for the Olympics. Players qualify by their International Badminton Association world ranking as of May 1. The top 32 players in each of the five categories qualify, with the exception being players from the host country, Greece. Han and Bach are ranked 16th.
Han is originally from China but moved to Queens, N.Y., in 1989. He is currently the top American player. Han also qualified for the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. Bach was born in Vietnam but moved to San Francisco at an early age. He lives and trains at the Orange National Training Center in Orange County, Calif., and is a student at Cal State-Fullerton.
THIS IS THE YEAR?: Since badminton became an official Olympic sport in 1992, no American has earned a medal.
