Taiwan Today

I. The Feat

September 6, 1960. Rome, Olympic Stadium. Rafer Johnson, the big handsome athlete from Kingsburg, California, was running a little scared. Yes, the world's acknowledged best decathlonist and record holder was lead­ing after nine gruelling events. Nevertheless he was a little scared.

The 1960 Olympic decathlon event had by now simmered down to a two-man race. Breathing down Johnson's neck was his school­mate and most formidable rival, C. K. Yang of China. Yang represented the first Asian since 1936 trying to win an Olympic track and field gold medal. He also was the first Chinese in history to be within hailing distance of the top.

The thousands of spectators sat enthralled in their seats. The American basketball team found its way into the stands to cheer up Johnson. The entire Chinese community in Rome turned up to root for Yang.

Nearing a nervous breakdown was Ducky Drake, coach of the University of California at Los Angeles. Both Johnson and Yang are his students. Ducky knew for sure he would be the first coach to have two of his charges from two different countries win the first two places in that all important Olympic decathlon.

"Rafer, c'mon! Keep your head low, Yang! Attaboy!" he shouted hoarsely from the grandstand.

The score showed: Johnson, 8,056 points; Yang, 7,989 points. The championship would be decided in the 1,500-meter race, a Yang specialty.

Yang had already won the first place in five events. But he lost heavily in weights. The lead seesawed three times between the two men. And the moment was finally here.

"I've got to beat him," Yang muttered to himself.

"I must run right behind him. I've got only a 10-second margin," Johnson calculated.

*                                    *                                    *                                    *

The little aboriginal village of Malan, East Taiwan.

All the Yang clan was gathered in the three-room brick house-father, mother, three sisters, uncle, aunt, brother-in-law and two little children. The radio was spottily blar­ing out the Rome results.

 

Around midnight, the radio signed off. But the family kept on watching. In tradi­tional Ami tribal fashion, they started to sing for their beloved Marsan, Yang's name in the Ami language:

"Marsan, we sing to thy glory.

"Marsan, we eight are here singing to thy glory.

"Marsan, our songs praise thy feats in Rome.

"Marsan, we sing to thy glory."

 

It was the best day in the history of the Amis. The Amis, one of the eight major aboriginal tribes in Taiwan, were happy be­cause from among them one of the world's greatest athletes was born.

*                                    *                                    *                                        *

A newsroom, Taipei.

It was almost 6 o'clock in the morning. The editors were still there, waiting for the word from Rome. The edition was all ready, except for that glaring empty space on front page. The teletype was alive. So were the men surging around it. The paper got to have Yang's news for the readers.

All the dozen telephones kept on ringing. Readers were calling up, asking for the latest. Weary fingers lifted the receivers. "No, we haven't got the final result yet."

One editor wanted to call up his wife, telling her he would be some five hours late for home. He couldn't find one single avail­able phone.

"Here," the managing editor tossed him a coin. "Go out and try a pay booth."

Among those making the predawn calls were college professors, government officials, small peddlers, buck privates and the thou­sands who entered into a contest guessing the outcome of the Olympic decathlon.

*                                      *                                    *                                     *

Moscow and Peiping.

There was outward calm. But tempers were going up.

The Communist world's hope and one­-time world record holder, Vassily Kuznetsov, was trailing the American and Chinese so badly that all hopes had been abandoned.

Just imagine, the mighty Vassily should have been licked by a free Chinese! Some cadres thought with disgust.

*                                      *                                      *                                      *

When it was all over, Rafer Johnson found himself the world decathlon champion. His 8,392 score beat C. K. Yang by only 58 points. Both broke the Olympic record of 7,937 points but none could rewrite Johnson's own world record of 8,683 points.

Johnson was dog-tired. He had won the toughest competition in his life. Immediately, the 24-year-old UCLA graduate student an­nounced his retirement.

Yang sat down near the track. He wept some. A sportsman at heart, he got up, walked over to a sweating Johnson and said, "Nice going, Rafe."

The two men embraced and left the field together.

Near the dressing room, Yang rushed into the arms of his Chinese coach, Professor Wei Chen-wu. The two shed tears together but Wu finally congratulated Yang for his win­ning the first medal for China in the history of the Olympics.

Yang knew he had done what all other Chinese had failed. But he was not satisfied. There no was retirement for him.

Before he reached the Olympic Village for the jubilation dinner in the Chinese delega­tion quarters, Yang momentarily blacked out. Out of exhaustion. Two days of nerve­-breaking competition began to tell even on China's "Iron Man."

*                                      *                                      *                                      *

In free China, cheers went up skyward. Two floats circled the streets with the happy news. One newspaper published an extra. Medal-hungry Chinese beamed broadly.

President Chiang Kai-shek also joined the rejoicing and sent a congratulatory cable to Yang.

And the Yang family began packing. They were coming to Taipei to greet the home-coming Marsan.

II. The Story

The story of C. K. Yang is one of tears and sweat crowned by success. It still needs its concluding chapters. Yang himself is back in training. He hopes to write the last chapter in 1964 at the Tokyo Olympiad with a gold medal as the "finis."

The story started 27 years ago in that humble village of Malan in mountainous Tai­tung.

About half an hour's drive over bumpy roads from the city of Taitung is this tiny village. Malan is snuggly in Ami territory. It is poor, backward but struggling for improvement.

Many years ago, the Amis at Malan put their fate in a fiery and strong chieftain by the name of Kras Mahanhan. Legends still speak of the many adventures of Kras. These legends are certainly to be revived and embellished since the grandson of Kras is now a world famous sportsman.

 

After Kras the village chief died, his son decided to ditch aboriginal life. He went after farming, changed his name into Yang Po-chung and sent his eldest son, Marsan Mahanhan, now Yang Chuan-kuang, into school. The family kept some old Ami habits. Children still eat with their fingers and men and women give a lot to singing and dancing.

Chuan-kuang was not a prodigy at home or in school. His marks were never bad. Nor were they good enough to win special recognition. Some of his grade school teachers remembered him as a shy boy who preferred to play by himself. Some others had different recollections. None, however, remembered him as an outstanding student with success written all over his face.

Stripling Chuan-kung soon found out his long and musculars legs were quite an asset. He ran errands for people. With the few farthings he earned, he often invited his friends to a bowl of hot noodles. His friends conceded he could outrun them any time.

The rugged mountain paths helped Chuan-kuang greatly. His legs, thus developed, were to carry him to fame.

But he discovered his arms first.

While in high school, Chuan-kuang took to baseball. He did not know the art of the game well but he knew to throw hard.

It was exactly ten years ago when C. K. Yang put himself under public scrutiny. He went to Kaohsiung for the Provincial Games as a relief pitcher from the county of Tai­tung. The 17-year-old boy did not do well. Taitung went to defeat.

Taitung kept on calling on Yang. Next year, he went back to the games in track suit. He was then the high jumper.

From then on, Yang continued to repre­sent Taitung either in high jump, broad jump or baseball. He managed to get one second place, a few third spots and a lot of disap­pointments.

The twist came in 1954, all by accident.

He was picked, for the first time in his life, as a broad jumper to represent China in the Second Asian Games in Manila. He also was told to try high jump. Yang was with the second team, though. He could not beat Lin Teh-sheng in broad jump or Hsieh Tien-hsin in high jump.

The official decathlonist was Huang Chien who won a place in the team through try­outs. Yang had absolutely no idea that it was in decathlon that he was to excel.

During the training period, Professor Ssu Ling-sheng, the head coach, one day woke up with an idea. He asked his fielders to run races with his trackers. And the trackers were to compete in field events too. Professor Ssu said it was just to prod the boys and to provide some fun.

C. K. Yang, the second string athlete, out-ran two over-confident sprinters. He also came close to upsetting the official discus and shotput athlete. He thought it quite funny.

Professor Ssu did not think it funny. It was serious business, very serious.

He called Yang aside. "Young man," Ssu told a shy 21-year-old Yang. "I think you should try decathlon. It's made for you."

The reply was disheartening. "I never touched pole vault in my life. And the hur­dles, they hurt me."

Ssu was not a man easily to be discour­aged. He cornered Yang again a few weeks later and broached the idea again. Yang did not walk away. He promised to try.

"As best as I could remember," Yang said I a few years later. "I promised to try simply because I did not have the heart to say 'No' to him again."

Yang's reminiscence went on:

"They called in Chi Pei-lin to teach me how to toss that lead ball, that steel disk and that wavering spear. The runners gave me pointers about hurdles. I myself knew how to jump. But the pole vault! It almost killed me. But I finally learned how to sail across the bar.

"In two weeks time, I was in Manila decathlonist. "

Yang recalled his decathlon record before the Asian Games was 5,333 points. It was quite good in Asia, second only to a Japa­nese but better than Huang Chien already.

Yang kept on training. When the ten events were finally completed, he won the gold medal with 5,454 points.

"It's rather interesting that my score co­incided with the day of competition, the fifth month's fourth day," Yang happily said.

The Philippine press gave Yang a big write-up. He was called the Iron Man of Asia. The name stuck.

From then on, Yang came under the pro­tective wings of S. S. Kwan, a wealthy en­gineer and builder whose lifetime avocation is the training of good athletes. Kwan in­vited two great American athletes, Bob Mathias, the world's two-time decathlon champion, and Bill Miller, the sprinter, to Taiwan to help train Chinese sportsmen in general and Yang Chuan-kuang in particular.

Mathias was amazed by Yang's potential and adaptability. He said, "Once I taught him how to correct his form in high jump. On the next try, he beat me at my own game."

In two years, Yang improved so much that most people agreed he could top 7,000 points, at that time an impossibility for any Asian.

He was sent to Melbourne in 1956 to compete in high jump and decathlon in the 16th Olympiad. China only nourished the hope that he might win an unofficial point to break China's point famine.

His 6,565 points at Melbourne was a Chi­nese record but yielded only a dismal eighth place in world ranking. It was a heart-rend­ing journey for Yang, Kwan and the country.

But nobody gave up. Two years later, Yang was back in Tokyo to defend his Asian decathlon crown. The Iron Man was by now so eminently superior in that all-round sport that he was told not to over-exert himself but to take part in three single events too.

Yang won the decathlon crown hands down. His 7,101 points was the official Asian record. In addition, he won a silver medal in broad jump and a bronze medal in 400­-meter hurdles.

This alone would not be a great achieve­ment but for the fact that Yang by then had rewritten six Chinese national records. And all people were agreed Yang had not reached his limit yet.

Kwan started a fund-raising campaign and sent Yang to the United States in July, 1958 to take part in the American national decathlon championships at Palmyra, Virgi­nia.

 

Yang scored 7,625 points there. He still lost to Rafer Johnson, the man predestined to be C. K. Yang's Nemesis.

The performance proved one thing: Yang could top 8,000 points, given vigorous train­ing. So, Kwan went back to fund-raising and kept Yang in the United States. He was sent to Los Angeles to be put under the care of Ducky Drake who subsequently went to Rome as a guest of the Chinese Olympic team. Yang entered Drake's UCLA as a freshman officially last year.

The year 1959 was quite uneventful. Yang competed again in the US decathlon cham­pionships at Kingsburg, California. Johnson not competing, Yang became the American champion. But he did not climb over the 8,000-point barrier.

He also reaped some fame in other ap­pearances in America.

Most of the time while he was in Los Angeles, he trained hard under the eagle-like eyes of Drake and Wei. He knew he was weak in his arms. The remedy was gymnasium workouts two hours a day. He brushed up his weight events. Ironically, it was still the weight events in which Johnson beat him this time.

Two years stay in America made Yang a different man. No longer a naive tribesman from the backwoods of Malan, Yang learned to speak English well, drive well and be social. He also took a great fancy to automatic machines. It was said that Yang never sat down at a booth before he had dropped some coin into the jukebox or, when it was not available, the candy machine.

In July, 1960, Vassily Kuznetsov was the world decathlon record holder although the Russian had lost two big ones to Johnson. Yang was merely regarded as an ambitious upstart with some depth but questionable chance.

The depth shone through at Eugene, Oregon that month. It was again the US decathlon championships. Three of the world's great ten-eventers—Johnson, Yang and Dave Edstrom—were on hand for that historic con­test.

Both Johnson and Yang broke the world record. Johnson turned in a whopping 8,683 points and Yang came in with 8,426. That contest showed the shapes of things to come in Rome.

Days after the meet, this writer met Yang in Los Angeles. He was confident. Discuss­ing his own ability, he said he could beat Johnson if he had a good day.

He did not have that day in Rome. Johnson outdid himself in high jump and pole vault to maintain his superiority. Yang said the shotput was the thing which broke his back.

Yang, at 27, is not married. Rumors have been spreading about his pending engage­ment to an overseas Chinese girl. But people who know Yang insist that the six-foot-one athlete is still a free agent. His over-riding ambition, they say, is an Olympic gold medal, or, for the next one or two years, a world record of his own.

Only time will tell whether Yang can repeat his success story. He is not too young, although he is not too old either.

For the moment, one fact stands out. Yang Chuan-kuang, the gangling kid from the treacherous mountains of East Taiwan, is the greatest sportsman in Chinese history.

He is great because he wants to be the greatest.