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Asian Americans
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PERSONALITIES | FEATURES | NEWS
Asian Americans in Athens 
The good news: the U.S. Olympic Team is on track to end the Athens summer games atop the medal standing. The bad news: it will include little glory for Asian American athletes. Putting aside polite rhetoric about the joys of friendly competition, the only medal that can be considered a genuine Asian American triumph is a surprise silver in the decathlon. Unfortunately, most Americans see Bryan Clay as another African American athlete rather than a half Japanese American one.
Surprise Silver Clay, 24, is reserved, slender and small relative to other decathletes (5-11, 174 lbs), and injury prone. That's why few expected him to figure in the Olympics. Then in the U.S. Olympic trials he pulled off a David-and-Goliath upset over Tom Pappas, the 2003 world champion and a 6-5 209 protoype decathlete. Even so, most considered the win a fluke and lay heavy odds on the Greek American to take gold as the crowd favorite in his ancestral homeland. |
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But Pappas fell victim to the Athens jinx. In his first seven events he turned in mostly sub-par performances, then withdrew with a foot injury after his first pole-vault. By then he had slid to fifth and was all but out of the medal picture. Clay, on the other hand, had been steadily moving up in the point standings. The loss of his teammate seemed to inspire him to even greater effort. In the javelin throw and the 1,500-meter run, the final two events, he turned in new personal bests to end with 8,820 points, the third highest ever by a U.S. decathlete and only slightly less than Roman Seberle's 8,893 gold-medal total.
What makes Clay's surprise medal more meaningul to Asian Americans is the similarity between his struggle and the one that faces Asian Americans every day in all walks of American life. “I think people kind of take me for granted,” said Clay. “They don't really take me seriously sometimes. Whether that's my personality or my size or whatever, hopefully now they'll know I'm for real.”
Team Gold You can't question the reality of the gold medal won by second-baseman Lovieanne Jung as a member of the U.S. women's softball team which swept the Olympic series with an unmatched 8-0 record. Still, we can't help wishing that Jung's contribution to the team's success showed more evidence of the slugging prowess that made her the 2003 homerun co-leader. But then again, the entire team was fated to labor in the shadows of the team's already legendary pitcher Lisa Fernandez.Huge Disappointment If decathlete Bryan Clay was the surprise medalist, the U.S. women's volleyball team was the surprise no-show. A shame, too, because it was coached by Toshi Yoshida and featured two admired Asian Americans: outside hitter Logan Tom and setter Robyn Ah Mow-Santos. In January of 2001 Yoshida took over as head coach a team that had earned a slightly disappointing fourth-place finish in Sydney. Having won gold with the Japanese men's team in 1972 and having served as a respected assistant coach to the U.S. women's team since 1998, Yoshida put much stock on Japanese-style intensive drilling techniques. The results were encouraging. The U.S. women took gold in September 2003 at the NORCEZA Zone Championships and bronze at the World Cup, which earned them automatic entry into Athens. PAGE 2 |
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