Dominance, Thy Name is South Korean Archery

Korean Rio Archery Team
South Korea’s Archery Team for the Rio Olympics Korea’s team comprises recurve men Kim Woojin, Ku Bonchan and Lee Seungyun and recurve women Choi Misun, Ki Bo Bae and Chang Hye Jin.
Nothing like an Olympic Games to get a nation to focus. And when South Korea was awarded the 1988 Summer Olympic Games, the National Olympic Committee and Korean Government drew a bullseye on archery.

Over the past 7 Summer Games, South Korea has won 18 of 28 possible gold medals, whether individual or team, men or women. In fact, the South Korean women’s team has won gold at every Olympics since 1988.

This is not luck. This is a significant investment in identifying archery talent early, and developing the strongest archers so that the pool competing for international competition is deep. This is how the BBC explained the South Korean archery talent machinery.

Koreans are introduced to archery at primary school, with talented children receiving up to two hours training a day. The less able are then weeded out at middle school, high school and university level until the very best are hired as adults by the company teams run by organisations such as car manufacturer Hyundai.

Korean Kids Archery

Approximately 30% of the Korean Archery Association’s (KAA) budget comes from the country’s Olympic Committee, but the main financial strength of the system is from these 33 company teams who provide a wage and a pension to archers employed solely to compete for them.

Here’s how a former South Korean archer explains the intense competition that yields world champions.

With so many top class archers around (back in 2004, a non-Korean archer who was ranked 5th in the world had the same competition record as a Korean archer placed 90th in the country), no one is guaranteed a victory or a spot in the national team. Many former gold medalists have been struck off a year or so later because others (and some of them newbies) have surpassed them in ranks. It’s a sport where seniority really doesn’t matter at the end of the day, allowing for true competitive spirit to flourish.

Apparently, the sport of archery is expensive – a single arrow costing around $40. And because archery in South Korea is so well funded, their archers can spend all their time sharpening their craft. Again, the former archer describes this world-class level of dedication.

The sport is also very well-funded, and athletes really get to focus on what they do best. This means that they practise like machines. The 2012 London Olympics women’s team said that they shoot 500 arrows a day. As far as I know, Ki shoots with a 40 pound bow. Obviously I’m a bad point of comparison, but I am pretty much done for the day after shooting a double Portsmouth (120 arrows) with a 34 pound bow.

As it turns out, only one person from the 2012 London Games will be returning to the 2016 Games, Ki Bo-bae, who won gold in the women’s individual and women’s team competitions. The rest, you can bet are the best of the Korean up and comers.

Any sure bets for the Rio Olympics? South Korean archery is looking like a bullseye.

Ki bo-bae portrait
Ki Bo-bae at the London Summer Games
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Two-Time Olympic Champion Wrestler Yojiro Uetake Part 2: Born in Japan, Made in America

Uetake at his Induction Ceremony
Yojiro Uetake Obata at his induction ceremony to the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame

He chats with me with a casual ease, talking about his life growing up in his home town of Oura, Gunma, while overlooking the training of high school wrestlers. Suddenly, his eyes sharpen, he shouts out words of encouragement, and then returns to the reminiscing.

Yojiro Uetake Obata, bantamweight freestyle gold medalist at the 1964 and 1968 Olympics, has returned to his hometown to coach at Tatebayashi High School in Gunma. This is where he tried to find his way with judo, but was believed to be too light to compete against competitors of all weights. Wrestling, which divides competitors into weight classes, allowed Uetake to find his life sport. Before long, Uetake was a national high school wrestling champion. Little did he know that wrestling would take him to a far off land called Stillwater.

While teenage Uetake was dreaming of going to the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, the commissioner of the Japanese Wrestling Federation, Ichiro Hatta, was working on fulfilling a promise to Myron Roderick, American Olympian at the 1956 Melbourne Games and in the 1960s, and head coach of the Oklahoma State University wrestling team that would dominate NCAA wrestling in the United States throughout the remainder of the 20th century. After sending a strong Japanese wrestler to the United States in order to compete for Roderick at OSU, the wrestler went to Brigham Young University instead after being heavily recruited. According to the OSU sports magazine, Posse, “It made Mr. Hatta mad and he told Myron not to worry, that he would send him a better wrestler; that’s when Yojiro showed up.”

Yojiro, or Yojo, as the Americans called him did not really want to move to the US. After all, he couldn’t speak English at all. But at least Stillwater, Oklahoma had the small town feel he was familiar with in Gunma – people were friendly. And he liked the food – particular hamburger steaks and gravy, fried chicken and ice cream!

Fortunately, Uetake know how to control his weight so he could compete for the Oklahoma State University Cowboys. And compete he did, like no other Cowboy in its hallowed history. Yojiro Uetake never lost a match, winning three straight individual Big 8 and NCAA wrestling championships from 1963-1965, going an incredible 58 – 0 in collegiate competition. In between, he also picked up a gold medal for Japan at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

OSU star Yojiro Uetake
Yojiro Uetake with his NCAA winning haul.

What was the secret to his success?

Uetake had a great relationship with his coach, Myron Roderick. “He was a very strong wrestler,” Uetake told me. “He was passionate, strong in fundamentals and technique, and I really liked his focus on getting take downs. ‘Take ’em down and let ’em go’, he would say about how to get two points quickly.” The admiration was mutual. Roderick’s wife Jo Ann was quoted as saying, “Myron always said that Yojiro had natural talent, and was by far the best wrestler he ever saw or coached.”

Uetake also had a great relationship with the OSU football team, taking health and physical education courses with them, including future Dallas Cowboy star fullback, Walt Garrison. “He was one of the greatest athletes I ever saw,” Garrison said in this article. And apparently Garrison and his teammates saw a lot of Uetake because the coach not only allowed him in the practices, he allowed him to practice with them. Uetake credits football training, like running inside ropes, hitting tackling dummies in quick succession, moving side to side, fast-paced push-ups and sit-ups. “Tackling from a squat is great for wrestling as we are in the same stance, where we need to be ready to attack, hit, and get back and get ready again,” Uetake told me.

Living in America had a profound effect on Uetake. Not only was he coached by Roderick, and taken under the wing of the OSU football team, he learned how to build his own style of training. At the time, the NCAA did not allow coaches to train their wrestlers during the summer season. Instead, Uetake had to work to supplement his meager funds. “I would go to the Delta and Grand Junction in the Colorado mountains, which was like a desert. I worked on building irrigation pipes. And to keep in shape, I’d come up with ways to train.” Uetake told me that he would have to lift very heavy hay, but he’d do it in a way to work on specific muscles. He also maintained his feel for combat by actually tackling trees.

If he was in Japan, Uetake Obata told me he would be wrestling all the time, and following the directions of his coach. And he would never have developed his own way of training, and never really learn how to best take advantage of their own body and physical gifts. “I did this myself,” he said. “Roderick taught me how to focus, but I learned a lot on my own.”

Obata with the Tatebayashi HS wrestling team
Uetake Obata with the Tatebayashi HS wrestling team

On Monday, August 3, 2015, Yojiro “Yojo” Uetake Obata was finally inducted into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame. As he said in his acceptance speech, nothing gives him more pride. “I have always loved Oklahoma. Every time I come back to Oklahoma I look

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I Am Orlando

I Am Orlando
Photo by Prince Williams / WireImage

Shavonte Zellous is a guard on the New York Liberty WNBA basketball team, who was on a flight back home to Orlando when she heard the news of a man unleashing the full fury of an automatic rifle into a unknowing crowd of revelers. The nightclub where over 50 people were murdered, Pulse, is in her neighborhood, five minutes from her high school.

This link takes you to The Players’ Tribune, and Zellous’ heartfelt angst as a gay person dealing with the irrationality of hate. “What am I doing that’s so bad that makes you want to kill me? That makes you hate me?”

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Two-Time Olympic Champion Wrestler Yojiro Uetake Part 1: Technique, Speed and Victory

 

Yojiro Uetake_1964_1
From the collection of Yojiro Uetake Obata.

Japan had high hopes for wrestling at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. And in fact, Japanese wrestlers won five gold medals, becoming overnight heroes for Japan.

But one of the least well-known of the overnight heroes was Yojiro Uetake, who moved to the United States in 1963 and competed for Oklahoma State University. Uetake wasn’t asked to come back to Japan to compete for the Olympic team, so he paid his way back to Tokyo in the early summer of 1964. When he arrived at the training camp to select wrestlers to represent Japan in the Olympics, Uetake said he was an unknown and made others uncomfortable.

The selection process was to wrestle the seven wrestlers competing in the bantam weight division. And the competition was strong: Hiroshi Ikeda (1963 bantamweight world champion), Tomiaki Fukuda (1965 bantamweight world champion), Masaaki Kaneko (1966 featherweight world champion), Takeo Morita (1969 featherweight world champion). But the Japanese from Oklahoma swept through the competition and finished 6-0, sealing his selection to the 1964 Olympics.

At the start of the Tokyo Olympics, the wrestler from the Soviet Union, Aydin Ibrahimov, was considered a strong favorite to win gold in the bantamweight class of the freestyle wrestling competition in 1964. As it turned out, Uetake met Ibrahimov in the semi-finals of the bantamweight championships. In the heat of the battle, Uetake’s left shoulder popped out of its socket. His coach pressed hard on Uetake’s arm and popped his shoulder back in. “I didn’t feel anything,” Uetake told me, but he went on to tackle Ibrahimov twice to win 2-0. “When you are in the Olympics, tension is very high. I was simply so excited I don’t feel any pain. Of course, after it was all done, it hurt a lot!”

Uetake had plowed through the competition to this point. But to win the gold, Uetake had to defeat Huseyin Akbas of Turkey, the reigning 1962 World Wrestling Champion. And to that day, no Japanese had ever beat him. Uetake told me that he only needed a tie to win the gold medal, and in such cases, a wrestler could become passive.

Uetake and Ibrahimov_1
From the collection of Yojiro Uetake Obata.

Uetake wanted to take Akbas down by grabbing his left leg, but was cautious because Akbar was fast and was known for turning that attack to his advantage and flipping his opponent. It seemed to Uetake that Akbas was staying away while Uetake was trying to find the right opening. In the second round, the referee briefly stopped the fight to warn Uetake to attack, and gave Akbar a point. That was the only point Uetake gave up in his Tokyo Olympic competition.

“My mindset was to never lose a point,” Uetake told me. “I would never ever let an opponent touch my leg. I’d always be looking at the opponent’s eyes and prevent any

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IOC’s Powerful Decision to Create The Team of Refugee Olympic Athletes

Team of Refugee Olympic Athletes
Ten refugees have been selected to form the first-ever Refugee Olympic Athletes team.  © UNHCR

Nearly 60 million people in the world are considered refugees. If refugees were considered a sovereign nation, it would be the 22nd largest country in the world, in between France and Italy. But in France and Italy, its citizens live in relative safety and freedom. In the nation of Refugee, citizens live in perpetual instability, with little choice where they can reside.

To highlight the plight of refugees globally, the International Olympic Committee, in partnership with the United Nations Human Refugee Agency (UNHCR) made a wonderful decision to include a team of stateless athletes, to be called the Team of Refugee Olympic Athletes. They include a Syrian swimmer living in Brazil, and another living in Germany, two judoka from the Republic of Congo both now living in Brazil, a marathon runner from Ethiopia training in Luxembourg, and five middle-distance runners from South Sudan, who all live and run in Kenya.

Over 5 million people have perished in the ongoing civil wars in The Democratic Republic of the Congo. Yolande Mabika was separated from her parents in the midst of fighting. Orphaned she ran the streets alone as a young child, until she was picked up, put in a helicopter and placed in an institution for displaced children in the capital of Kinshasa. She learned judo, and became so good that she was selected to represent her country at the World Judo Championship in Rio de Janeiro, where, outside of the competition, she was held in captivity by her own coach. Having had enough, she left the hotel started her life as a refugee in Brazil.

With the advent of the Arab Spring, Syria began its descent into a long, cold winter. Since the Spring of 2011, the Syrian government has lost control of half of its country, fighting a long and bloody fight with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), creating millions of refugees in the process. Syrian swimmer, Yusra Mardini was in a boat with 20 other Syrians attempting to flee the murderous chaos of their country for what they hoped was safety across the Mediterranean Sea. But their rickety boat was taking on water. Mardina jumped in the water with her sister Sarah, and pushed the boat to Greece. Finally finding asylum in Berlin, Germany, Mardini is training for the 200-meter freestyle event in Rio.

South Sudan gained its independence in 2011, after decades of civil wars. Unfortunately violence due to ethnic conflict has continued, displacing anywhere from 20 to 50,000 people. James Nyang Chiengjiek escaped South Sudan at the age of 13 to avoid being forcibly recruited as a child soldier in one of the various militias involved in the conflict. He became a teenage refugee in a Kenyan camp. And when he joined a school that had a

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Kinue Hitomi: Japan’s First Female Phenom Shatters Stereotypes and Records

Hitomi Kinue finishing second in 800 meters in Amsterdam in 1928
Kinue Hitomi (2nd L) of Japan competes in the Women’s 800m during the Amsterdam Olympic in August 1928 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. August 01, 1928| Bildnachweis: The Asahi Shimbun

In the 1920s, they were called the Women’s Olympic Games, a sporting event organized because Baron Pierre de Coubertin fiercely resisted the wholesale addition of women in his Olympic Games. The Second Women’s Olympic Games were held in Gotherberg, Sweden in 1926, in which there was one Japanese representative – Kinue Hitomi .

Hitomi was entered in several athletic events: the running long jump, the standing broad jump, the discus throw, the 100-yard dash, as well as the 60- and 250-meter dashes. And not only did Hitomi break the world record in the long jump, as is explained in the book, Japanese Women and Sport: Beyond Baseball and Sumo, by Robin Kietlinski, “she stunned people the entire world over as she was awarded the prize for outstanding overall athlete of the Women’s Olympic Games.”

Overnight (figuratively in that age of snail mail and print journalism), Hitomi became a star in Japan. Japan’s flag flew proudly in Sweden thanks to the athletic prowess of the 19-year-old from Okayama Prefecture in Western Japan.

Hitomi Kinue stampAt the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam, Japan had high hopes for Hitomi . Unfortunately, the organizers did not include the 200 meter race in its schedule, a sprint that Hitomi believed she had the best chance to win. But due to schedules and other factors, she entered herself in the 100-meter race. And in the semi-finals, Hitomi was eliminated. She missed entering the finals by a fraction of a second and was in serious trouble of returning to Japan with nothing to show for it. As Kietlinski explained, the discus throw had already ended, the high jump was simply too competitive, and the 4X100 relay required three more teammates.

There was one possibility left – the 800-meter footrace. It was a new distance, so Hitomi and probably everyone else thought anyone had a chance. So Hitomi pleaded with her coach to run in this race. Kietlinski explains that the coach told her not to sprint at the beginning, that she needed to better pace herself in this longer distance. But Hitomi’s instincts took over, and she sprinted to first at the half-way mark. Then she faded as runner after runner passed her, falling to seventh. Kietlinski describes the amazing comeback:

As Hitomi began to feel her dreams of becoming Japan’s first female Olympic medalists slip away, she remembered something her coach had told her again and again – to use her arms when her legs were tired. In the grainy video footage of the race, one can actually see the moment at which Hitomi remembers this advice, as her arms suddenly gain power and she begins pumping them higher than eye level. Through her mental and physical exhaustion, Hitomi managed to regain the ground she had lost after the first lap, and in the final straightaway (the last 50-meters of the race) she pulled ahead of several runners to finish second overall in a time of 2 minutes, 17 seconds. This time broke the standing world record for that distance by nearly five seconds.

With her silver medal in the 800-meters, Hitomi became Japan’s first female Olympic medalist. And she returned to Japan as a hero. But Hitomi could not escape one perception – she was a women who was unlike other women in her home country. She was taller (169 cm) and heavier (54 kilos) than most women in Japan, and despite how proud the average Japanese was about Hitomi’s accomplishments, they also didn’t mind chuckling about whether she was a man or woman.

Hitomi Kinue taller than average
Kinue Hitomi – as you can see, taller than average.

Kietlinski uncovered this interview of Hitomi in a popular women’s magazine, Fujin Sekai. In the excerpt of this July, 1929 article, “Miss Hitomi Kinue and the Question of Womanhood”, Kietlinski highlights what society’s expectations were for women in the 1920s. You must be warned. Even men who give little regard to diversity issues today may find this interview cringe-worthy.

Fujin Sekai (FS): Since women’s sports have become popular I have noticed the average height of women has grown somewhat…And may I ask your weight?

Hitomi Kinue (HK): Fourteen kan, four hundred momme (about 53 or 54 kilograms).

FS: Well, that is a bit surprising! So, since that is about the same weight as most men, haven’t people said that they are doubtful that you are really a woman?

HK: Well, when I was overseas nobody had such suspicions, but I heard this rumor upon my return to Japan.

FS: Ha ha ha! Well wouldn’t that be funny if you were really a man! It has a smack of mystery – this could be the main plot twist if I were to write a mystery novel. It might really baffle people, ha ha ha!

HK: I’m embarrassed.

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Komazawa Olympic Park: A Living, Breathing Legacy of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Komazawa Olympic Park venues 2
Komazawa Olympic venues in 1964, from the book, The Games of the XVIII Olympiad Tokyo 1964

Are the Olympics a worthy investment? Does the investment create legacies for the host country?

The answer to those questions are often “no”, unfortunately, at least in terms of the billions spent on structures like stadiums and other various sports venues.

Many of the structures built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics still exist, like the Nippon Budokan, the National Gymnasium and Annex, as well as the Komazawa Olympic Park venues. Not only that, they live and breathe. Click below on the video to see and hear what I did.

On Sunday, May 1, during the long break in Japan known as Golden Week, I took a short bicycle ride to Komazawa Olympic Park, and walk where 1964 Olympians walked. The Park is a collection of venues: Komazawa Gymnasium where Japan won 5 of 16 total gold medals just in wrestling, Komazawa Hockey Field where India beat Pakistan in a memorable finals between two field hockey blood rivals, Komazawa Stadium where soccer preliminary matches were played, and Komazawa Volleyball Courts where Japan’s famed women’s volleyball team mowed through the competition until they won gold at a different venue.

On that day, thousands of people were enjoying unseasonably warm weather under clear, blue skies. The tracks around the park were filled with runners. The gymnasium was hosting a local table tennis tournament, and the stadium was prepping for the third day of the four-day Tokyo U-14 International Youth Football Tournament.

Komazawa 3

In the plaza between the various Komazawa venues, hundreds were enjoying the weather with great food and drink. I was pleasantly surprised to find draft Seattle Pike IPA. While enjoying the cold beer on the hot day, surrounded by hundreds of people loving the day, I realized that Japan in the 1960s made great decisions in planning for the 1964 Olympics. I had a similar revelation earlier when I visited the National Gymnasium months earlier. So much of what was built for those Summer Games are a part of the everyday life of the Japanese.

Japan built a fantastic legacy for 1964. What legacy will Japan begin in 2020?

Komazawa 6

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Doves vs Pigeons: A Symbol of Good vs Evil?

pigeons over national staidum
From the book, Tokyo Olympiad, Kyodo News Agency

One of the greatest memories for the 1964 Olympians from the Tokyo Games is the opening ceremonies – the parade of athletes, jets sketching the Olympic rings in the sky, the lighting of the Olympic cauldron. The only event to get lukewarm reviews? The release of the pigeons.

  • “The pigeons are the most prolific dropping birds. We all kind of ducked for cover. The droppings from the sky were plentiful.” (British rower, Bill Barry)
  • “We all had cowboy hats. When they released the peace pigeons we were protected. Many of our compatriots were not. Our clothes were messed up but our hair wasn’t.” (American Judoka, Jim Bregman)
  • “The pigeons were dumping on the Olympians.” (American water polo player, Dan Drown)

Or were they doves?

To be honest, I was confused myself as Olympians, books and articles alike used the words “dove” and “pigeon” interchangeably. But aren’t they completely different birds? Doves are white. They symbolize peace. Pigeons are multi-colored gray. They symbolize disease in the urban environment.

Pigeon vs Dove

My confusion finally ended when I listened to this episode from one of my favorite podcasts, 99 Percent Invisible, in which producer Roman Mars interviews the author of the book, Unseen City: The Majesty of Pigeons, the Discreet Charm of Snails & Other Wonders of the Urban Wilderness, Nathanael Johnson. Here is how Johnson described pigeons:

Pigeons are legitimately revolting. All the things we find loathsome are really caused by us, humans. We bred them to be massively productive and then we put them in a situation where we fed them all kinds of food and we created this food waste that they could eat. They reproduce like crazy and so they overpopulate and they’re all squished together and they get all these parasites and diseases. A lot of the things we find disgusting about them is a result of that.

But as Mars explains in his 99 percent invisible site, pigeons have a proud and regal history.

Historically, these were birds of the aristocracy. Researchers believe they were domesticated in the Middle East and then spread around Europe by the Romans. Their habitats were even built into the architecture of Roman houses: one common element of a traditional Tuscan Villa was an integrated lookout tower and pigeon house. In the 1600s, pigeons were brought to Canada from Europe; from there, they spread across the United States. Governors and dignitaries would exchange them as gifts and house them in domestic pigeon roosts. As they became more common and wild, pigeons began to lose their exotic appeal and fell out of favor with the upper class.

Unfortunately, thanks to urbanization and the overpopulated and diseased state of the pigeon, our perception of this bird type has diverged. Mars again explains this quite eloquently:

This change in status is reflected in the evolution of common language as well: for a long time, “pigeon” and “dove” (of the same bird family) were essentially synonyms. Over time, the two diverged: “dove” was increasingly associated with positive things and “pigeon” became associated with the negative. Imagine, for instance, Pigeon Soap beauty bars, silky smooth Pigeon Chocolate, or the Holy Spirit descending from Heaven in the form of a pigeon.

So now I know – a pigeon is a dove, a dove is a pigeon. One, an alter ego to the other, akin to the devil pigeon on one shoulder, and the angel dove on the other.

I’m reminded of Milton and

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Helene Mayer: The Jewish “Arayan” Who Won Silver in Berlin

Helene Mayer's Salute at 1936 Berlin Games
Helene Mayer’s Heil Hitler Salute at the 1936 Games
This is not a Hollywood script.

An Olympic fencer, gold medalist at the 1928 Amsterdam Games and six-time national champion in Germany, Helene Mayer was a golden girl and likely eager to participate in her country’s Olympics in 1936.

While studying international law in the US in the early 1930s, she got surprising news. Her membership in a major fencing organization, The Offenback Fencing Club, was rescinded. The reason? Her Jewish heritage.

Mayer was surprised to learn that her father was Jewish. And apparently, she denied that fact. As explained in the fun-fact-filled book, The Book of Olympic Lists by David Wallechinsky and Jamie Loucky:

She was the perfect embodiment of the Nazis’ conception of Aryan womanhood, except for one detail – her father, a doctor who had died before the Los Angeles Olympics (in 1932), was Jewish. Mayer did not think of herself as Jewish, particularly after her father’s death.

Naturally, the German authorities were not going to invite Mayer to the Berlin Games three years later. The Hitler regime intended to allow not a single Jewish athlete to compete. But the German authorities were also desirous of pulling off a public relations coup by hosting the Olympics, showing the world that Germany was a nation of superior standing, representing world peace and inclusion. Under pressure, they decided to ask two Jewish athletes to compete on the German national team – a high jumper, as well as a fencer – Helene Mayer.

While she received pressure from Jewish groups in the US to not go to the Olympics, Meyer was overjoyed to return to Germany for the Berlin Olympics. She was open for her love for her home country.

Helene Mayer portrait

And while she did not win the women’s individual foil championship for Germany, she placed second, good enough for silver and a spot on the medal stand. Quite amazingly, when the Hungarian national anthem was being played for gold medalist Ilona Elek, Mayer, one of only two Jewish athletes added to the team, reluctantly by the German authorities, held out her right arm in a Heil Hitler salute. As is described in this article, the image is striking: “Her face is determined. Her posture is perfect. Her arm points strong and fierce. She leaves no doubt as to what she is doing.”

What was Ilona Elek, whose father was Jewish, thinking when she saw Meyer to her left show her definitive support for the Arayan Race. What was Meyer feeling, as she stood in

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A Tale of Two Cambodian Marathoners: Neko Hiroshi and Dr. Nary Ly

Neko Hiroshi running in a Cambodian marathon
Hiroshi Neko

Hiroshi Neko is a comedian from Japan, whose popularity was fleeting. Nary Ly is a biology PhD who survived the Killing Fields.

Both are representing the Kingdom of Cambodia in the marathon competition at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Cambodia is not a sporting hotbed – no Olympic medalists have hailed from this Southeast Asian nation, despite participating in seven Summer Olympic Games. One fundamental reason was the massive genocide of 2 million people under the government of the Khmer Rouge, in a country that had only 8 million people at the time. To have a quarter of your population wiped out, including a large number of the young, inhibits the chance of athletic stars to emerge and shine.

Neko Hiroshi cat imitation
Hiroshi Neko the comedian

The qualifying time for the 2016 Olympic marathon is 2 hours and 19 minutes for men, and 2 hours and 45 minutes for women. Neither Hiroshi Neko, a naturalized Cambodian citizen, or Dr. Ly have qualifying times. But by virtue of a program to allow broader representation by countries lacking the dedicated resources for the development of world-class athletes, the International Olympic Committee has an allocation called “Universality Place.”

Both Dr. Ly and Hiroshi Neko were allocated universality placements by the IOC to represent Cambodia.

In 2011, Neko became a Cambodian citizen, with the hopes of going to the 2012 London Games under the blue-and-red-striped flag of Cambodia. The IOC ruled that Neko had not fulfilled a requirement of one year as a Cambodian citizen, and so did not qualify under the Universality Placement system. Additionally, there was criticism of Neko, that perhaps he was taking the place of a native Cambodian.

This May, Neko, who real name is Kuniaki Takizaki, came first in a marathon in Cambodia in which 10 other Cambodians competed. And he has the full support of the Cambodian government, according to this article from Kyodo News.

“We are happy and congratulate Mr. Neko on being admitted for the Olympic Games. He deserves to be admitted for his tireless efforts and hard training on his own,” said the secretary general of Cambodia’s Olympic committee, Vath Chamroeun.

“As you know, some countries spend much money to buy foreign nationals who are good at sports, but we pay nothing to Neko and instead he comes to help us,” said Pen Vuthy, secretary general of the Khmer Amateur Athletics Federation. He went on to say that Neko’s sacrifices for the sake of Cambodia are a source of pride for Cambodians.

Dr Nary Ly of Cambodia at the New York City Marathon
Nary Ly running in the New York City Marathon

At the same time, Dr Ly, who was Cambodian, is a native symbol of the Olympic spirit. She was born in 1973, two years before the Khmer Rouge emerged as the country’s overlords, as explained in this wonderful blog post. Dr Ly was thankfully too young to remember the horrors of that time and was able to survive until the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979.

Dr Ly was 6 years old when the Red Cross evacuated her to France, where she was able to grow in safety, get an education, and become an expert biologist. Over the years, she has become a competitive runner, good enough to seek consideration for the 2012 London Olympics. But she was told at the time, when she was about 38, that she was too old.

“The men who run the [Cambodian sports] governing bodies told me I was too old to run at the Olympics,” she says. “Even then, I was the best in the country. They lacked

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