RIO DE JANEIRO — Pop quiz: What are the sports in which the United States has never won an Olympic medal?
If you guessed badminton, handball and table tennis, you would be correct.
That drought may not change in Rio — for one thing, the United States does not even have a handball team entered. But if badminton is ever to come off that unhappy list, Phillip Chew may be the reason.
Chew, 22, is making his Olympic debut this week in men’s doubles and mixed doubles, the culmination of two decades of grooming by his grandfather, Don Chew, one of the leading badminton patrons in the United States.