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| Winning gives way to friendship of 13 years in Olympic taekwondo trials
SportsLine.com wire reports
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- Friendship proved stronger than the drive to
win for Olympic taekwondo hopeful Esther Kim.
She forfeited a match to her injured friend, Kay Poe, so Poe could make the
U.S. Olympic team for the Summer Games in Sydney.
"She came up to me and said, 'I know you won't want me to, but I really
want to bow down to you,"' said Poe, 18, who didn't initially accept Kim's
offer and wanted to fight.
"I just started crying, because this was her chance just as much as it was
mine. Really, it was the most heartfelt moment of my life. I don't think it
matters who won. We're both winners."
Poe entered the taekwondo trials ranked No. 1 in the world in the flyweight
class and destined for Sydney. A left knee injury during the trials' semifinals
left her unable to compete against Kim at the Olympic Training Center on
Saturday.
That seemed to end her hopes of a September gold medal.
But Kim, a huge underdog if Poe had been healthy, gave up her free trip to
Australia by forfeiting the match to her friend from Houston with a dramatic
bow down, the sport's equivalent of a forfeit.
Poe and Kim, who train under Kim's father, Jin, have been friends for 13
years.
With Poe unable to walk Saturday, Kim assisted her to the mat for the
women's flyweight championship match. When they reached the mat, they sat side
by side in chairs.
They were too emotional to stand for the official bow down, which ends a
match. Many minutes passed as Poe, Kim and their coach hugged and cried while
surrounded by reporters and cameras. Poe even rested her injured left leg on
Kim's lap while a photographer snapped pictures for them. Eventually, the
flyweights made it to the center of the mat, embraced and teared up again
before Kim's bow down.
"(Poe said), 'We have to fight, we have to fight,"' said Kim, 20, who
insisted she has no regrets. "I was like, 'Hey, you can't even stand up. How
are we going to fight?' We both got really quiet, and there was a long moment
of silence. Then I looked at her and said, 'God, we won. We finally did it. We
won.' I've always said that if she won, I would always feel like I won, too,
because I know I was part of her winning and vice versa.
"At that point, we started crying and said, 'We finally did it, we finally
did it, we finally won."'
AP NEWS |
