Olympians

The Olympic Games are a series of leading international sporting events, featuring both summer and winter sports competitions, with athletes from over 200 countries attending. While small for now, there is a steadily growing number of Asian Americans being sent in the American delegations to these Olympic games. Below are some up and coming Asian American Olympic athletes to keep track of!

• Chloe Kim
  • Kim is an 18 year old snowboarder from Long Beach, California. Since the beginning of her snowboarding career, Kim has always been a dominant force in many National snowboarding competitions. While too young to participate in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, Kim has picked up a total of four golds from the Winter X Games, two golds from the Winter Youth Olympics (being the first American woman to earn a gold at this event), and scored a perfect 100 points in the United States Snowboarding Grand Prix. In the 2018 Winter Olympics, Kim dominated the halfpipe event, becoming the youngest woman ever to win gold at the Olympics in the Halfpipe.

• Nathan Chen
  • Chen is an 18 year old figure skater born in Salt Lake City, Utah. In his 2017 skating season, Chen went through Nationals undefeated, an impressive feat considering that he competed against defending Olympic champion Yuzuru Hanyu. Nicknamed as the “Quad King” for the sheer number of quad jumps that he frequently performs in his routines (granting him extra points for technicality), Chen is a two time US National Champion (2017, 2018), and has won a 2018 Winter Olympic bronze medal in the team event.

• Hailey Langland
  • Langland is an 18 year old snowboarder from Irvine, California. Langland specializes in the relatively new “Big Air” event, where snowboarders utilize one massive jump to pull off as many tricks as possible. Despite the relative youth of this event, Langland won the gold medal in the 2017 Winter X Games and became the first female to land the double cork. Langland has represented the United States in the new Big Air and slopestyle events at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

• Laura Zeng
  • Laura Zeng is a gymnast that competed in the 2016 Rio Olympics. She was born in Hartford,Connecticut to immigrant parents. Her love of gymnastics started at age 7. She specializes in rhythmic gymnastics and won bronze at the Junior Olympics and placed 7th in Rio. At only age 19, Laura Zeng as accomplished so much as an American gymnast. She was the first to win at the Junior Olympics and the first to win a medal at the World Series. She won all gold at the Toronto Pan American games and was the first to be apart of 3 world championship events. Other than being a gymnast, Laura is planning to attend Yale.

• Lee Keifer
  • Lee Keifer is a fencer that competed in the 2012 and 2016 Olympic games. She was born in Lexington, Kentucky and comes from a family of fencers. She placed 6th in the 2012 Olympics for foil. Her more recent accomplishments include receiving a gold medal at the Pan American Championships for foil and being named the World’s number 1 ranked woman foilist. She continued her career in Notre Dame where she won four national titles in the 2017 NCAA Championship and was named MVP. She now is a medical student at the University of Kentucky.

• Lily Zhang
  • Lily Zhang plays table tennis who competed in the 2012 and 2016 summer Olympics. She was born in Redwood City, California. Her father was a table tennis player in China. Her love for table tennis started early on at age 7. Her talent was recognized early on and she was scouted and trained. She was the youngest player to make the U.S Women’s team. Since then, Lily has won the US National Championship in singles four times and was a Pan American Games gold medalist. She went to the University of Berkely and has since then graduated.

Sources:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/11-asian-american-athletes-watch-2018-pyeongchang-winter-olympics-n834081

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Zeng

https://und.com/roster.aspx?rp_id=8116

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Kiefer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lily_Zhang

http://kore.am/11-asian-american-olympic-athletes-you-need-to-know-before-rio/