Asian Olympians Represent the United States at the 2012 Summer Olympics (London)


Nathan Adrian

By Keen Hung Lee

Nathan Adrian is an American swimmer and three-time Olympic gold medalist. Adrian has won a total of fifteen medals in major international competition, twelve gold, two silver, and one bronze throughout the Olympics, the World, and the Pan Pacific Championships. In the 2008 Summer Olympics, Adrian earned a gold medal in the heats of the 4×100-meter freestyle relay when the United States team won in the final. Adrian is of Chinese descent, where his mother is Chinese. He started swimming at age 5 because he was influenced by his siblings who swam. Adrian attended University of California, Berkeley in fall 2006 after graduating from Bremerton High School. Adrian majored in public health and graduated with honors in the spring of 2011.

 


Howard Bach

Howard Bach is a Vietnamese-American badminton player who won the 2005 World Badminton Championship in men’s doubles with Tony Gunawan. Bach and Tony became the first American badminton team to win a medal at a world championship. In 2008, Bach and another partner were the first U.S. badminton team to reach an Olympics quarterfinal. Bach and Gunawan participated at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Bach was born in Saigon, Vietnam on February 22, 1979. At age five, his father encouraged and coached Bach to play badminton by enrolling him at the Golden Gate YMCA in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.

 


Alexander Massialas

Alexander Massialas is an American fencer who competed in the Men’s foil at the 2012 Summer Olympics (London). His father is a three-time fencing Olympian and one of Massialas’ current coaches. At age 16, Massialas was announced as the youngest person to win a men’s foil Division I National Championship in 2010. In 2011, Massialas also became the youngest athlete to win a medal at the Seoul World Cup. Massialas was born and raised in San Francisco, California. He is of Greek a Chinese descent. Massialas will continue his fencing career at Stanford University this fall.

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