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EDMONTON — If this were any other Olympics, in any other place, Jujie Luan wouldn't have bothered.
Twenty-four years have passed since the fencer struck gold in the foil event for China at the Los Angeles Games, eight since she retired from competition. She has a husband and three children in her adopted home, Edmonton, and next week she hits the milestone 50 – old enough to be a grandmother to some Olympians.
Yet she has spent thousands of dollars, taken months off work and travelled the globe to claw her way back up the international rankings – all to make the Canadian Olympic team and qualify for her fourth Games.
She has a ready explanation, direct and undeviating.
Jujie Luan won China's first fencing gold in 1984; now she's a 50-year-old mother of three competing for Canada in her fourth Olympics. She's one of many ethnic Chinese on the Canadian team. (John Ulan/Epic Photography)
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“Because it's in China, that's why I'm trying,” she says. “If not in China, then I'm not trying.”
Ms. Luan – the grand dame of fencing, the old lady of foil once described to Canadians as the Gordie Howe of China – is not alone in making the Olympic pilgrimage home.
A contingent of Canadians who will be competing in table tennis, shooting and swimming next month also have Chinese roots. Ms. Luan says she is proud of her homeland, and visits often, and wanted to take part in China's grand introduction to the world. And she – along with athletes such as NBA star Yao Ming – will generate an unprecedented frenzy when she arrives in Beijing.
It has been an epic journey, now coming full circle.
Born to a family of seven children, Ms. Luan didn't take up fencing until she was 16, late for the sport requiring early-honed finesse. But within a year she was on the country's national team and started racking up an impressive string of victories.
By the time she was 20, she'd reached legendary status with a gutsy performance at the world junior championships. Ms. Luan, a rare southpaw in fencing, was stabbed by her opponent, the foil snapping off in her left arm, just under the bicep. (In foil, the fencer gets hits when he or she strikes the torso of the opponent with the point of the blade. A metallic vest registers successful hits with an electric pulse.) But Ms. Luan fought through the pain to earn a silver medal. It was a feat that, combined later with her Olympic gold – China's first Games medal in the sport – fixed her place as a national treasure, with her face on a stamp, her name on T-shirts, her story told in textbooks and on film.
Her move to Canada came after participating in the World University Games in Edmonton in 1983. She fell in love with the city and, by 1989 – a year after competing for China at the Seoul Olympics – Ms. Luan moved to Edmonton to study English as well as to compete and coach.
In 1994, she received Canadian citizenship and was part of the Canadian Olympic squad at the 2000 Games in Sydney. But she lost in her first match and returned to Alberta to settle into life as a married mom and head coach, nurturing the Edmonton Fencing Club into the biggest fencing facility west of Toronto with hundreds of members, including two of her own children.
On a recent weeknight, Ms. Luan's son, Daniel Gu, 10, is playing with some equipment in the gym as his mom coaches. He says he expects she will be in demand for interviews once she gets to China. Ms. Luan's daughter, 14-year-old Jerrica Gu, who is moving her way up the fencing ranks and could well qualify for London in 2012, is quietly complaining about spending two months this summer in China. Ms. Luan's eldest child, Jessica Gu, 17, who has Down syndrome, is also milling around the club.
For all her celebrity in China, Ms. Luan is barely recognized in Canada – except in the confines of the fencing world. But during a break from teaching, she says she has already reached her goal.
When she hits the half-century mark on July 14, she will depart for Nanjing, where she grew up, to train and visit with friends and family, before participating in an unparalleled coming-out party for her homeland.
“I'm dreaming. I'm 50 and I am going to Beijing Olympic Games. I made it already,” she says. “Top three. Medals. It doesn't make a difference.”
She refers to herself as “old” or “too old” nearly a dozen times while talking about her long road to Beijing. At her age, she says, she would never make the Olympic team in China, where there are so many more young and talented fencers.
