Taiwan Today

This gentle, great-hearted sprinter and jumper from Taiwan: has a good chance to win gold medals in the 100-meter dash and hurdles at the Munich Olympics

Free China's "Iron Girl" has a heart that the Tin Woodman of The Wizard of OZ would envy. She won three gold medals in the American indoor track and field championships last February 28 and then broke into tears. The crying does not rust her joints as it did those of the Woodman. She steels the muscles of her long legs and goes out after another world record.

Chi Cheng is a rangy 5 feet 8 inches (172 centimeters) tall and weighs 136 pounds (62 kilograms). She won a bronze medal at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968 and is expected to win a gold one or two at Munich in 1972. She was hailed as woman track and field athlete of the year in 1969. The Japanese call her the "Flying Antelope" because she can leap as well as run.

At the February AAU meet at Madison Square Garden 10 New York, she took the long jump with a distance of 21 feet ¾ inches (6.42 meters). That broke both the AAU and Chinese national records. Then she won the 60-yard hurdles in 7.6 seconds and the 60-yard dash in 6.7 seconds. Not since the days of Babe Didrikson (who won five events and tied for first in a sixth at the 932 AAU meet) had there been such a performance by a woman athlete.

Miss Chi, who proudly wore the Chinese flag on her uniform, bowed graciously and shed her tears. She was thinking, she said later, of her mother, who has supported the family as a washerwoman, and of her country, which made it possible for her to go to the United States for the coaching that has made her a world champion. The repayment she plans for family and country is more victories, not only at Munich, but also at the Sixth Asian Games in Bangkok next December. Her Olympic gold medal or medals would be China's first. Judged by 1969 performances as well as the AAU feat, her chances are good. She competed in more than 70 events last year and was beaten only once.

Chi Cheng was born in rural Hsinchu county of north-central Taiwan in the autumn of 1944. She was the third of seven children in an impoverished family. Two younger sisters were adopted when they were small. The two younger brothers are still living with Chi Cheng's 56-year-old mother. The father left his family 14 years ago. Her older brother and sister are married and have homes of their own.

Miss Chi remembers her earliest years as a time of moving from one cheap rented house to another. The Chinese smile knowledgeably when she tells of devotion to her mother. In the Chinese way, the daughters of poor families are commonly reputed to be filial and usually are. Chi Cheng's primary and secondary school grades were good. She enjoyed literature and hoped to go to the Normal University in Taipei. Tuition is free and her aim was to become a teacher.

Those long, strong legs were carrying her in a different direction. She was a fourth-grader when she won the 100 and 200-meter runs in a school meet. Soon fellow-students gave her the name "Long Legs" and she was taking home blue ribbons from county and provincial meets.

It was 1958 and she was 14 when she entered the high jump at the 13th Taiwan Provincial Championships. Her performance attracted the attention of the late S. S. Kwan, who once headed China's Track and Field Committee. Kwan had officiated at every provincial meet and was always on the look out for track and field talent. He befriended Chi Cheng, took her into his family and coached her in the hurdles, high jump and broad jump.

She went to Rome for the Olympics in 1960 but that was C. K. Yang's year, not hers. Her "Iron Man" teammate gave Rafer Johnson a magnificent race for the decathlon title but had to be content with the silver medal. Her reward was the trip and increasing recognition. Her all-around ability seemed to suggest the pentathlon and she started training for it. By 1961 she was good enough to win the grueling five events in Taiwan with a national record of 3,962 points.

The provincial games of 1962 saw Miss Chi break four national records and win three gold medals. Her records were in the 80-meter hurdles (11.9 seconds), high jump (1.57 meters), long jump (5.58 meters) and pentathlon (4,142 points). She did not enter the high and long jumps but her pentathlon marks were better than those of the individual winners. She was unanimously chosen as the Republic of China's athlete of the year.

A government scholarship made it possible for Chi Cheng to go to the United States in February of 1963. She enrolled at Citrus Junior College in Southern California and Vincent Reel of nearby Claremont Men's College became her coach. Her improvement was rapid but still not sufficient to win a medal in the Tokyo Olympics of 1964. She bumped her knee on a hurdle and wound up 17th among the 19 pentathlon finalists.

Just a month before the Olympics, the "Iron Girl" had scored 4,446 points in a Los Angeles meet. At Tokyo she could do no better than 4,229. However, even the higher score would not have placed her among the top six. The leaders, all Europeans, scored a high of 5,246 and a low of 4,737 points. Her individual marks were: 80-meter hurdles, 11.1 seconds (1,027 points); shot put, 9.79 meters (697 points); high jump, 1.40 meters (721 points); long jump, 5.72 meters (924 points); and 200-meter dash, 25.8 seconds (860 points).

Although Chi Cheng later raised her best pentathlon score to 4,844, it was decided before the 1968 Mexico City Olympics that she should concentrate on individual events. Endurance is the specialty of the European rather than the Oriental woman athlete. As age increased, she wou1d have less chance to improve her scores in the five events. Her best pentathlon performance was in 1968 just after she had won the AAU championship and just before the Olympics. These were her marks: 80-meter hurdles, 10.6 seconds; shot put, 36 feet (10.97 meters); high jump, 5 feet 1 inch (1.55 meters); long jump, 19 feet 8% inches (6.01 meters); and 200-meter dash, 23.6 seconds. If she had entered the Mexico City pentathlon, she would have finished about 10th on the basis of these performances.

At Tokyo, Miss Chi ran the 80-meter hurdles in 11.1 seconds and didn't make the finals. At Mexico City, on October 18, 1968, she became the first Oriental girl ever to win an Olympic medal in a track and field event. She was clocked in 10.4 second's, the same time as Pam Kilborn of Australia, who placed second. The two ran a photo finish behind Maureen Caird of Australia, who. won the gold medal in 10.3 seconds, a new Olympic mark and equal to the world record.

Chi Cheng got a lift from an encouraging letter from her 17-year-old brother the morning of October 18. In the stands to cheer her on were Education Minister Yen Chen-hsing and General Yang Shen, president of the Chinese Olympic Committee. They had arrived that morning. Her modest pride was evident as she received her medal. At home 14 million people applauded. Of the 112 national and territorial teams competing at Mexico City, only 44 had a medal to show for their efforts.

The hurdles triumph came after disappointment in the 100-meter dash, which she ran in 1l.5 seconds to finish seventh. She had done 11.4 in the semi-finals. Wyomia Tyus of the United States was the winner with a new world record of 11 seconds. Chi Cheng couldn't have matched that time but she had run the distance in 11.2 seconds, equal to the recognized world record, at a Denver meet only a month earlier.

She hadn't planned to go home after Mexico City but governn1ent and people wouldn't have it any other way. Chi Cheng was a Taiwan heroine and crowds gathered everywhere she went. At Kaohsiung in the south she received a five-minute standing ovation. She gave demonstrations and talked to young people. Together with decathlonist C. K. Yang, she toured the island raising funds to improve sports facilities.

At the age of 25, Chi Cheng hit her stride last year. She entered 71 events and won 24 times in the 100-yard and 100-meter dashes, 13 times at 220 yards and 200 meters, and 26 times in the hurdles. Her only track defeat was at 100 meters. She won 23 medals in a two-month tour of the United States, Europe and Japan, then returned home to receive an award from the Ministry of Education on Sports Day September 6.

The January (1970) issue of Women's Track & Field World carried her picture on the cover and called her "World Athlete of the Year", an honor accorded on the basis of votes from 38 sports commentators and writers in 23 countries. Chi Cheng won with 67 points. A Russian was second with 64 points and an Australian third with 62.

In performance rankings, Miss Chi was on top for the United States in four events: 100 and 220-yard dashes and 100 and 200-meter hurdles. She was third in the long jump and fifth in the 440-yard run. On two occasions she ran the 100-yard dash in 10.3 seconds to equal thc world record. She skimmed over the 200-meter hurdles in 26.2 seconds to knock nearly a full second off the world record of 27.1 seconds held by Roza Babich of Russia.

More records have fallen this year. At Vancouver on February 21, she ran the 50-meter hurdles in 6.9 seconds to break the old world mark held by Mamie Rallins of the United States. In the same meet, she set a Canadian record of 20 feet 8J4 inches in the long jump. She also was winner of the 50-meter dash in 6.2 seconds. Her triple victory in the AAU championships came a few days later.

Looking forward, Asian coaches and sports writers expect Chi Cheng to wrap up several gold medals in the Bangkok Asian Games at the year's end. She probably will enter the 100 and 200--meter dashes, 100-meter hurdles and long jump, Her performances are already Asian records in all of these events plus the 100-yard dash, 400-meter run and 200-meter hurdles. Her Asian pentathlon record still stands.

As for the Munich Olympics a little more than two years hence, she hopes to be at her best. As things stand, she looks like the favorite in the 100 meter hurdles. She gets a break as a result of the decision to scrap the 80-meter hurdles in favor of the 100-meter distance. Taller than most other women hurdlers of international standing, she will derive an advantage from the longer strides between obstacles.|

In the 80-meter hurdles, the 2 foot 6 inch high barriers are spaced 8 meters apart. For the 100-meter distance, the hurdles are S.5 meters apart and they are 2 feet 9 inches high. The first hurdle is 13 meters from the starting blocks. In the 80-meter hurdles at Mexico City, the gold and silver medal winners were shorter than Chi Cheng. At Munich, the "Iron Girl's" long stride should be helpful. Addition ally, she is fast at the 100-meter distance. As early as 1965, she ran the 100-meter distance in the world-record time of 13.3 seconds.

Karin Balzer of East Germany now has a claim of 12.9 seconds in the 100-meter hurdles. Chi Cheng has done 13 seconds flat in training. The two girls have not competed but those who have seen both think that the Chinese speedster has an excellent chance. Miss Chi is an exemplary competitor, especially against European track and field luminaries. The better the opposition, the better her performances.

In Italy last year, she won the 100 and 200 meters from a Cuban girl in times of 11.3 and 23.1 seconds. She ran half a second ahead of her challenger in the 200. In the 100-meter hurdles she faced two Polish girls with times equally as good as hers. She won hands down in time that was up to half a second better. Miss Balzer will go into the Olympic at the age of 33 compared to Miss Chi's 28. Five years is a lot.

Could Chi Cheng win two Olympic gold medals for the Republic of China? There is a possibility. In the 100 meter dash, her principal competitor looms as Barbara Farrell of the United States, who won the silver medal at Mexico. City with a time of 11.1 seconds. Last year Chi Cheng raced against Miss Farrell five times and lost only once - her one defeat of 1969.

Not many years ago the Chinese way of life closed out the possibility of an athletic career for a girl. History tells of amazons but that was long ago. Chinese girls have been expected to stay at home, take care of their families and leave sports to the men. Miss Chi's success is changing that. Girls of Taiwan have acquired a new interest in track and field, basketball and other competitive athletics. New champions are in the making.

Chi Cheng has convinced the Chinese that women can follow sports without losing their femininity. If not beautiful, she is at least immensely attractive, in looks as well as personality. She is the antithesis of the woman athlete who is more like a man. She doesn't wear make-up in public but admits that she likes to try cosmetics in the privacy of her room. Her mirror does the judging. Success has not spoiled her. She does her own cooking, washes her own clothes, keeps up with her studies in a foreign country and foreign language, and then works out for those long hours that are required to win races and medals. After classes, she helps other athletes at Cal Poly in Pomona, California, where she is a junior, and then puts, in her own hours of training.

Chi Cheng could do no more than she has and still go into Chinese history as one of her country's greatest athletes. But the end is not yet. She wants the Olympic gold medal for China that barely slipped through C. K. Yang's fingers. She wants, also, to be the first Chinese girl to break through the barrier of a tradition that both protected and exploited her sex.

Chi Cheng is determined to be an Olympic winner. She has worked for that end, grindingly and uncomplainingly, and she is going to be hard to deny.

After that, she wants to be a woman. Her smile, her sincerity and her dedication all attest that she will make the grade. Win, lose or draw, Chi Cheng is already a champion