Taekwondo’s first family adds Craig to the list

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BEIJING -- The contrast couldn’t have been starker.

When the U.S. basketball team’s interview session ended in conference room 1 at the media center in Beijing on Friday afternoon, there were still hundreds of reporters from all over the world in their seats, listening to simultaneous translations in eight languages.

When the U.S. taekwondo team met the media in the same room moments later, you could almost count on two hands the number of reporters who remained. And there’s no comparison when it comes to the Olympic track record of the two teams either, since taekwondo’s Steven Lopez comes into the Olympics having won twice as many gold medals by himself (two) as the members of the U.S. basketball team have combined (one).

Which isn’t to say the U.S. taekwondo team has been ignored here. When it arrived in Beijing on Thursday, it was met by camera crews at the airport, partly owing to Steven’s pursuit of a third consecutive Olympic title and partly owing to the fact that this time his younger brother Mark and sister Diane are competing as well, making them the first three siblings to compete in the same discipline for a U.S. Olympic team since 1904. What’s more, they’ll all be competing under the direction of oldest brother Jean, the Olympic coach.

‘They’re my family, and they’re my teammates,’ Steven Lopez said. ‘So when I go into [the competition] it’s almost unfair because it’s four against one.’

Make that five. Unofficially the Lopez family has grown by one for these Games with the addition of 17-year-old women’s flyweight competitor Charlotte Craig of Murrieta.

‘They’ve taken me in as their family, basically,’ said Craig, who spent two months living with Mark Lopez and his fiance Dagmar in Texas during the lead-up to the Olympics. ‘We joke around saying that I’m the adopted Lopez. And I’m just grateful to be on the team with them. I really look up to all of them.’

Truth be told, given Craig’s difficultly qualifying for the Beijing competition, she’d probably be grateful to be on the team no matter who came with her. A senior nationals champion as a 14-year-old, Craig was a late replacement for five-time U.S. champion Mandy Meloon in the finweight class at last year’s world championships in China, where she surprised by winning a bronze medal

Then last April, two months after her 17th birthday, she qualified for the Olympics by winning at the U.S. trials in Des Moines.

‘It surprised me,’ she admitted in a voice no louder than a whisper. ‘I knew it was going to be hard to qualify for the U.S. for the Olympics. And when I did, I was in shock. It doesn’t still real.’

Nor did the chance to model, on national TV, the Ralph Lauren outfits selected for the U.S. Olympians for Friday’s opening ceremony.

‘I was a bit nervous,’ she said. ‘But I had lots of fun. I really enjoyed it.’

Which is what she hopes to do with her first Olympic competition as well.

‘I’m not intimidated at all,’ said Craig, who trains in Laguna Niguel. ‘Having Steven on the team, since he’s been to the Olympics twice already, I ask him a lot of questions. And basically he just told me I’m fighting the same girls, but just it’s going to be on a bigger stage. So I’m taking that advice.’

And as for being the fifth Lopez? Well, she’s taking that in stride too.

‘It doesn’t bother me at all,’ she said. ‘It’s a great thing that there’s three siblings and their oldest brother is the Olympic coach. It’s helping out our sport.’

Adds Jean Lopez: ‘There isn’t a feeling of having a fifth wheel around. It’s a testament to the kind of personality and character that she has. She’s the right person for this time and the history implications that we have as a family. She’s taken everything with good grace.’

-- Kevin Baxter