The first Arab-American to compete for the United States, a home-schooled kid from the South Bronx, a table-tennis phenom who defected from China, and an 18-year-old who beat out her older sister for a spot in Beijing are among the New York City athletes headed to compete in the Olympics starting this week.
Table-tennis pro Wang Chen will return to Beijing, the city where she was born, with stars and stripes in her eyes. Taraje Williams-Murray will work toward a medal in judo, the sport he learned to keep him off the mean streets of the South Bronx.
And five other New Yorkers – brought up in the so-called mecca of fencing – will duel for the gold.
Brother-sister fencing duo Keeth and Erinn Smart are the pride of Flatbush, Brooklyn. But it’s been a tough road.
Here are our Golden Boys and Girls:
Emily Cross, 21
Foil Fencing
Upper East Side
Golden moment: Winning two consecutive Junior World Championships in 2005 and 2006.
The Brearley grad and Harvard senior had “lightning fast” moves even at age 10, when her father, a professor at Rockefeller University, introduced her to the sport. Now, she sits in the top spot on the US women’s foil-fencing team. But after Beijing, it’s back to her pre-med degree, with her sights on being America’s top-ranked doctor.
Sadam Ali, 19
Boxing
Canarsie, Brooklyn
Golden moment: Winning the National Golden Gloves Championship twice in a row in 2006 and 2007 – the second New Yorker to do so.
The 132-pound lightweight, nicknamed “World Kid,” has earned a title before even arriving in Beijing: He’s the first Arab-American the United States has sent to the Olympics. He’s also the first New York boxer on the US team in 20 years – the last one was Riddick Bowe. His career started at age 8 in the Bed-Stuy Boxing Club, and it hit an obstacle when he was suspended for three months last year after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs. He was reinstated after proving the drugs came from over-the-counter cold medicines.
Keeth Smart, 30
Saber Fencing
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Golden moment: Clinching the world title in 2003 – the first American ever to be awarded the international honor
Erinn Smart, 26
Foil Fencing
Flatbush, Brooklyn
Golden moment: Three-time national champion and alternate in Sydney’s 2000 Games.
Erinn took up fencing after her father read an article about it in a newspaper. Keeth followed six months later. Both are still training at the nonprofit Peter Westbrook Foundation in Chelsea. Both college graduates, she works for a bank and he’s an analyst for Verizon Communications. She’s ranked 34th in the world and second among US women foil fencers; he sits at No. 5 in the world. Still, it’s been a bittersweet journey. Their mother succumbed to colon cancer in May, just a couple years after their father died of a heart attack.
Taraje
Williams-Murray, 22
Judo
Mott Haven, Bronx
Golden moment: Clinching the final Olympic spot by landing the gold in the Olympic Zone Cup and the bronze in the Pan American Championships in the same weekend this year.
As a home-schooled kid, the South Bronx native followed his cousin’s lead and started practicing judo at a nearby gym. He’s currently working toward a master’s degree in banking and financial services. Despite a setback last year, when he was diagnosed as anemic, he’s headed to compete in his second Olympic test.
Sandra Fong, 18
Shooting 50-meter Rifle
Upper East Side
Golden moment: Beating sharpshooter sister Abigail, 20, for a position on the Olympic team.
You’d never know this recent Hunter College HS graduate and budding playwright has such sniper power – unless you met her family. There’s father Yuman, a researcher at the Memorial Sloane-Kettering Cancer Institute, who taught her everything she knows, and sisters Abby, who is on USA Shooting’s rifle team, and Danielle, who has cerebral palsy and will represent the Paralympic National Team in shooting in Beijing. Fong will study theater at Princeton University this fall.