Human Interest Saturdays: Chinese-Canadian Olympians

Posted May 3, 2008 at 03:00 PM by Michael J. Sedor

Section: Beijing 2008, Beijing News, Culture/History, Human Interest, Events, Aquatics, Other, Featured Writers, Michael Sedor

Not every Chinese-born Olympian will be competing for their birth country in Beijing. Dozens of competitors now living throughout the world will be making a homecoming during this years’ Olympics. In fact eight will be competing for the Canadian Olympic team. Today will look at the three who won’t be competing in table tennis: sport pistol competitor Avianna Chao, fencer Luan Jujie and swimmer Victoria Poon. For more info on the Chinese table tennis diaspora refer to this China Daily article.

In their Friday edition, the Toronto Sun spotlighted Ms. Chao. The 32-year-old Toronto-based computer engineer won the 10-metre air pistol event at the 2007 Pan American Games and the bronze at the 2006 Commonwealth Games. This true Olympics amateur began shooting just seven years ago while her fiance was trying out for the Canadian National Team. He is now her coach.

Chao’s mother is an accomplished poet who immigrated to Canada in 1984 with just $100 in her pocket. Chao cites her mother as her true hero. The article ends with an inspirational quote from Chao that encompasses both her and her mother’s philosophy and life’s work “Hold on to your dreams and don’t let anyone tell you what you can’t do. Don’t listen to negative people. Hold on to your dreams and work hard.”

Fencer Luan Jujie knows what working hard is all about. Beijing 2008 will be her fourth Olympics and a homecoming for one of China’s most celebrated female athletes. At Los Angeles 2004 Luan won the women’s individual foil gold medal. She was 25. Today she is 50 and has come out of retirement because, she explained to China Daily, “My first dream was to win gold at the Olympics in 1984. The second was to compete at an Olympics in my home country.” She is now fulfilling that dream.

Luan immigrated to Canada in 1989 and now lives in Edmonton, Alberta where she runs a fencing academy but she is still beloved in her country of birth. In China, she is studied in textbooks, she has had a stamp issued in her honor, she was named one of China’s top 50 sport stars in the People’s Republic era, and she has had a movie made about her life. If she somehow manages to medal at age 50 then we are sure another movie will find its way into production.

Victoria Poon was born in Hong Kong and now lives in Montreal, Quebec after attending McGill University. She is the fastest 50m swimmer in Canadian history; Her 25.47 time at this years Canadian Olympic trials lowered her previous Canadian-best mark of 25.52 set in 2005. Yes, she was wearing the Speedo LZR. Follow this link for a self-effacing interview from Victoria on floswimming.com. The embedded youtube is a video of her most recent Canadian record time. She is in lane 5.