South Korea`s planned sweep of four taekwondo gold medals was thwarted Saturday by a De Paul senior who someday wants to run for mayor of Chicago.
Arlene Limas says she has the necessary voter strength with her Mexican and Polish blood and residence in the Greektown neighborhood near Lawrence and Western.
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She additionally went to Whitney Young High School with Jesse Jackson`s son, Jonathon, and was coached by a fellow with the unlikely name of Kareem Ali Jabbar. With such a patently eclectic Chicago ethnic view, she presumes to find her way into politics when she completes law school.
”Anyway, I`m going to try,” she said.
But as the first American gold medalist in Seoul, Limas also has gained some hefty athletic credentials, although there was a time when she wasn`t sure the U.S. Taekwondo Federation would let her even try out for the team.
She had to threaten a lawsuit in June to keep the federation from barring her from the Olympic trials because she had won some prize money years ago as a practitioner of Japanese karate.
But that money-no more than $10,000 over six years-had been put into a trust fund to maintain her amateur status, said Limas` fiance, Eric Hoffman.
When Limas took up Korean taekwondo three years ago with the single goal of making the Olympics in this demonstration sport, she said federation officials had assured her she would be allowed to compete. But federation politics got in the way, and that promise was withdrawn, at least until Limas hired a lawyer.
When the federation backed down, Limas won both trials in Colorado Springs and Raleigh, N.C., to earn her welterweight spot on the team.
With that pressure out of the way, the 22-year-old political science major focused on getting past world champ Coral Bistuer of Spain. She did that convincingly in a semifinal bout after her raucous family began chanting ”USA . . . USA . . .” midway through the match. Limas admitted the cheering gave her the lift she needed to surprise Bistuer with kicks that flicked like a serpent`s tongue.
Bistuer knew she was beaten. After the referee dramatically had raised Linas` arm, Bistuer reached over and lifted it again.
That victory put Limas into the final with Ji-Sook Kim, Korea`s world championship silver medalist. U.S. Olympic coach Sang Lee said he ordered a strategy change after seeing Kim carefully watch Limas` aggressive front-leg kick style demoralize the Spaniard.
Instead of ruthlessly attacking Kim and perhaps falling into a defensive trap, Limas turned conservative while her family yelled its lungs out for her to get moving. When Limas did press, she flicked vicious double kicks that kept Kim from countering as she had planned.
Limas said she couldn`t miss her family`s frantic vocal advice over the mostly Korean crowd of 8,000 in Changchung Gymnasium.
”Yeah, but now that the results are in, I think they`ll be satisfied,”
she said in the manner of a true politician.
Limas` cheering section comprised her mother and father, a brother, an aunt and uncle, her best friend, her fiance and his folks. All told, 10 Chicago friends and relatives made the trip to Seoul without daring to believe that they would hoarsely urge Limas to the gold.
”I can`t explain what I am feeling,” said her father, Arnold Limas, a transplanted Texan who owns an exterminating business on Western Avenue.
”There just are no words for this kind of feeling.”
But the U.S. coach said he felt Limas would win if she could beat Bistuer, ”but I didn`t want to say this to the media because of the pressure she then would have.”
Lee said said Limas` unorthodox kicking style baffles conventional fighters. They grow up flinging their rear leg for power, just as a boxer sets up a roundhouse punch from the rear by jabbing with the lead fist.
”But Arlene is different,” Lee said. ”She uses her front leg 80 or 90 percent of the time, and most opponents just can`t defend it. They aren`t used to seeing that. She also is very strong.”
Limas was unknown internationally in taekwondo, although she had ranked either first or second nationally in karate for six years. Her move to taekwondo came expressly because that sport got into the Olympics while karate won`t be showcased until 1992.
When Limas` victory was confirmed, she dropped to her knees on the mat as tears rolled from her family members` eyes. Later, when a tape malfunctioned during the national anthem, her family led an a cappella version that swelled grandly through the arena, bringing smiles of appreciation from the mostly local crowd.
”Leave it to my family to start singing like that,” Limas said with a pleased grin.
But somewhat to the dismay of those partisan Koreans, American fortunes appear increasingly bright in the growing sport of taekwondo. Last year, the U.S. had its best world championships ever, gathering 10 medals to tie Spain for second behind Korea.
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Two other Americans are being figured for golds. Heavyweight Lynette Love of Oxon Hill, Md., is the defending world champ, and 17-year-old Juan Moreno of Evanston is a darkhorse at finweight. He fights Monday.
The U.S. also racked up a pair of bronze medals Saturday when team captain Jay Warwick of Bozeman, Mont., tied for third in men`s welterweight and 16-year-old flyweight Mayumi Pejo of Binghamton, N.Y., medaled in her first international competition.
Pejo is another Chicago native, arriving while her father earned his residency in plastic surgery at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. They moved East when she was 2 years old.
Otherwise, the Koreans dominated their national pastime, a sport so popular that a third of the adult population is thought to own black belts.
Asian Games flyweight champ Tae-Kyung Ha breezed to victory over European and World champ Gabriel Garcia of Spain, four-time world welterweight champ Kook-Hyun Chung beat Italy`s Luigi D`Oriano in their final, and up and coming 16-year-old flyweight Nan-Yool Choo whipped Spain`s Maria Angela Naranjo after world champ Po Po Yong of Malaysia had been upset in the first round.
The normally sedate Korean crowd learned quickly from Limas` cheering section and began its own chants in an effort to drown out the Americans. Earlier, they had ignored virtually all but their own bouts, retiring to the grandstand concession stands for packets of smoked squid, seaweed rice balls, delicious shrimp chips and a styrofoamed noodle soup heated from cauldrons of boiling water maintained in the hallways.
Strangely, no one seemed to be hungry when the Limas family ganged up on the befuddled Kim.