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About The Asian reporter. (Portland, Or.) 1991-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 19, 2018)
OLYMPICS Page 8 n THE ASIAN REPORTER February 19, 2018 Pride for Asian-American skaters as they skate in the Olympics INSPIRED SKATERS. Keita Horiko, the 10- year-old U.S. Figure Skating juvenile boys champion, practices during his second workout of the day at the Ice House in Hackensack, New Jersey. With Asian Americans making up half of the U.S. Figure Skating team at the PyeongChang Olympics, talented young- sters such as Horiko can hope to realize dreams of one day being on the ice at the international level as they have plenty of role models to emulate. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) By Deepti Hajela The Associated Press H ACKENSACK, N.J. — Keita Horiko glided across the rink at the Ice House, picking up speed as he attempted a jump — and sprawled in a fall as he came back down. Unfazed, the 10-year-old U.S. Figure Skating juvenile boys champion got up and started skating again. His older brother, 13-year-old Yuki, also was on the ice, practicing his own moves as they wound down their second practice of the day before heading home to Manhattan and doing it all again the next day. They’ve got Olympic-size dreams, and when they watch figure skating at the PyeongChang Games, they’ve got plenty of role models — a history-making U.S. Figure Skating team in which half of the 14 members are Asian American. “It’s very inspiring and it makes you think, I want to be like them,” Keita said. While there have been Asian-American figure skaters representing the United States at past Olympics — the most high-profile being gold medallist Kristi Yamaguchi in 1992 and silver and bronze medallist Michelle Kwan in 1998 and 2002 — there never has been anything like this. For the women, there’s 24-year-old Mirai Nagasu and 18-year-old Karen Chen; on the men’s side, 18-year-old Nathan Chen and 17-year-old Vincent Zhou; among the ice dancers, sibling pair Alex Shibutani, 26, and Maia Shibutani, 23, and Madison Chock, 25. It’s a heady moment, especially because Asian Americans as a minority group have long faced stereotypes of being more about books and brains than anything else. “I think it’s supercool and exciting,” said Mai Hoang Parmentier, 35, of Yakima, Washington, who got into watching skat- ing when she saw Yamaguchi compete. “For me, growing up you had the stereotype of oh, Asians are good at math or academia or art or music,” she said. “I just like the idea that my daughter can see that she doesn’t have to be pigeonholed, that she can actually be good at sports.” Ryan Morris, 28, of Berkeley, California, agreed. The skating fan planned on making sure his young nieces and nephew watched it with him. “They’re going to see in the most important sport in the Winter Olympics ... people who look like them,” he said. “It’s a good feeling.” Olympian Scott Hamilton said Yamaguchi’s and Kwan’s not only skating on a world stage but winning was likely an impetus for a younger generation of Asian Americans, and their parents, even to consider it. “A lot of it is seeing a sport and seeing others be successful and saying, I want to do that, and that’s what you need,” he said. “Winning really creates interest.” There’s already been some success — skating in the team event, Nagasu became the first American woman to complete a triple axel in the Olympics. That led to some controversy when Bari Weiss, an op-ed writer for The New York Times, tweeted about the feat with the words, “Immigrants: They get the job done.” Nagasu was born in California, and the since-deleted tweet was criticized by some who said it touched on Asian-American concerns about continually being assumed to be foreigners. Even that has echoes in previous Olympics, as in 1998, when a headline after American Tara Lipinski won the gold medal read, “American beats out Kwan.” Kwan was born and raised in California. In this year’s games, much of the hoopla around possibly winning has focused on Nathan Chen in particular. The Salt Lake City, Utah, native, who predicted as a 10-year-old novice champion that he would be at the 2018 Olympics, has been showcased as an athlete to watch at these games because of his athleticism and multiple quadruple jumps. He is considered a frontrunner in the individual men’s event, even though he got off to a rough start by finishing fourth in the men’s short program for the team skating event after an uncharacteristic fall during a triple axel. That Asian Americans are being represented on the men’s side as well as the women’s is important, said Phil Yu, who writes about pop culture and other subjects on his Angry Asian Man blog. Chen’s overall presence and success “is a powerful statement for Asian-American men who have generally had this stereo- type hang over them of being not athletic, not expressive,” he said. “To have someone like Nathan Chen excel, not only excel, but blow all these other people out of the water, it’s a powerful thing,” Yu said. It certainly is for Yuki Horiko. Seeing someone Asian American like him go after Olympic gold “gives me more confidence” for his own hopes, the 13-year-old said. “If he can do it, maybe I can do it.” Deepti Hajela covers issues of race, ethnicity, and immigration for The Associated Press. “Shirtless” Tongan skier, others “live to fight another day” An Educ a tion Big g e r tha n a Ne ig hborhood. By Steve Reed The Associated Press P Sc ho o lwide O pe n Ho use : Ja n 30, 6- 8pm Cha t with Alumni Nig ht: Ma r 20, 6- 7:30pm p e rso na l to urs a lso a va ila b le • La ng ua g e Imme rsio n in Sp a nish, Ja p a ne se , o r C hine se • Inq uiry-b a se d , Inte rna tio na l Ba c c a la ure a te PYP Wo rld Sc ho o l • Pro fe ssio na l Fa c ulty fro m 17 c o untrie s • Ed uc a ting g lo b a l c itize ns sinc e 1990 Pre K-5th intlsc ho o l.o rg 503-226-2496 Celebrate the Year of the Dog! February 16, 2018 to February 4, 2019 YEONGCHANG, South Korea — The “shirtless” Tongan, all covered up to keep warm this time, had only one thought as he maneuvered around the final downhill turn and headed toward the finish line. “Please god,” the Olympic cross- country skier said to himself, “not in front of everyone. Don’t give me my first fall.” Pita Taufatofua made it to the finish line, all right, and he did it before they closed the course for the night — the other of his two fears heading into the event. The man who has marched shirtless and oiled up in the last two Olympics — summer and winter — wasn’t even last in the race. Taufatofua was, however, near the back in 114th place out of 116 finishers, about 33 minutes behind gold medallist Dario Cologna. And that was just fine by him. “I would rather finish toward the end of the pack with all of my friends than somewhere in the middle by myself,” said Taufatofua, who took up the sport last year after competing in taekwondo at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. “We fought together, we finish together.” Taufatofua and several others, like 43-year-old German Madrazo of Mexico, literally went around the world to qualify for the Winter Games, forging tight friendships along the way in pursuit of a common goal. They tried cross-country qualifying PERSISTING TO PYEONGCHANG. Pita Taufatofua carries the flag of Tonga during the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Taufatofua had more on his mind than just trying to compete at the Olympics. The 34-year-old cross-country skier is concerned about his homeland after it was hit by a cyclone. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong) races in Armenia, Poland, Turkey, and Austria. And failed. Finally, they travelled to Iceland and made it in the last qualifying race before the PyeongChang Games, spending nearly every last penny they had to reach their Olympic dream. “Pita and I spent two months, fighting and fighting every day,” Madrazo said. “One day we were completely out of money and we had one last chocolate bar. There was nothing left and we split that chocolate bar and said, ‘Well brother, we live to fight another day.’” Madrazo had to call home to Mexico to get a flight back from Iceland, having only bought a one-way ticket because that was all he could afford. His story is not unique. The 15-kilometer freestyle is the United Nations of cross-country skiing races. There was Kequyen Lam of Portugal, Sebastian Uprimny of Colombia, and Klaus Jungbluth Rodriguez of Ecuador among the late finishers after most of the crowd had left. Syed Human of Pakistan and Samir Azzimani of Morocco were there, too. None of them are elite cross- country skiers, but they were all eager to represent their country at the PyeongChang Games. The work those men put in to qualify for the Olympics was not lost on Cologna, a three-peat gold medallist in the event. “I think it’s good to have many skiers from many countries here,” Cologna said. “I think we have around 60 nations. I suppose we are Continued on page 10