BEIJING -- Gao Jun has already won an Olympic medal for
China.
Next year, she'll be trying to win one for the United States --
in China.
Gao's story, and dozens similar, are certain to pop up at the
2008 Beijing Olympics. Among the 10,500 athletes, many will come
with Chinese connections.
"I kind of love both countries," Gao said Thursday, visiting
the Chinese capital with several other American athletes with ties
to China. "When I am in China I miss the U.S. a lot, and when I've
living in the U.S. I miss China so much. I always look at the other
side."
Born two hours north of Beijing, Gao retired a year after
winning a table-tennis silver medal at the 1992 Olympics in
Barcelona. She then married a Chinese living in the United States,
moved there and obtained U.S. citizenship a few years later --
giving up her Chinese passport in the process.
"I totally stopped playing ping-pong," she said. "I went to
work but after a few years I was missing something -- something was
lost. So I decided maybe I should start again."
Since 1997, she's been a fixture on the American team.
At 38, Gao is America's top-ranked female player. She just won
the singles title in the Pan Am Games and will be competing in her
fourth Olympics following Sydney and Athens.
"I can't say I have a big chance, but I have a chance," she
said.
Gao began playing China's national sport at 5 and attended a
sports school for prodigies. When she resumed serious training, it
had to be in her native country, so she has been preparing in
Shanghai for five years.
"In the United States, ping-pong is a very small basement
sport," Gao said. "I think for Americans it's like a hobby sport.
It's not really a sport. People don't think you are serious. After
dinner Americans relax and play some ping-pong. But in China,
because of table tennis, China was opened to the world."
Gao, of course, speaks Mandarin perfectly -- and English almost
as well.
It's a slightly different story for Howard Bach (badminton),
Lindsay Pian (archery) and Iris Zimmermann (fencing). The family
names hide their Chinese roots.
Bach was born in Vietnam to Chinese parents, but moved to the
United States when he was 3. He speaks both Mandarin and Cantonese
-- a dialect of southern China that is all but unintelligible in the
north, where Mandarin, the national language, is common.
"Coming over here I realized the Chinese take a lot of pride in
what they do, and I really admire that," said Bach, who made
history in 2005 when he and Tony Gunawan won gold in men's doubles
at the world badminton championships. They are the first U.S.
badminton athletes to take a medal at the world or Olympic level.
Pian's two paternal grandparents were born in northern China.
She's hoping to make the U.S. archery team, but her Chinese is
limited to "xie xie and ni hao" -- "thank you and hello."
"I really wanted to go to Chinese school, but the school wasn't
easy to get to," Pian said.
Zimmermann finished fourth in the 2000 Olympics in the team foil
event. She retired, but was coaxed back to make a run at Beijing.
Her mother was born in Szechuan province in southwestern China.
"My mother was extremely excited I was working toward competing
in China," Zimmermann said. "I do have to say that when I stepped
off the plane and saw the signs for the Olympics I felt the energy
and excitement."
And the Olympics are still a year away.