Sports Watch
Eight hours later he's on a jet to Japan, shows up a day before the event and beats the reigning world champion in the final to win the gold medal. And also gets named as the tournament's most outstanding competitor.
He's back home the next day, attending classes at the University of Hawaii the following morning.
Meet Daniel Kim, who went through an improbable 72-hour saga with a Hollywood ending last weekend to win the 125-pound title in the Japan Open Taekwondo Championship in Osaka.
It was quite a dramatic time for Kim, a UH junior who hopes to major, quite appropriately, in theater. And if everything's still a blur to Kim, you can't blame him.
"I'm still a little jet-lagged," said Kim, 22, a member of the U.S. national taekwondo team.
Actually, jet lag had helped him, according to the Mid-Pacific Institute graduate. "I guess it calmed the nerves. Because it was so last-minute, I didn't have time to think or worry. I felt great."
How last-minute?
Kim got a telephone call at 4 in the morning last Friday from the coach of the national team, asking him if he could replace Robert Leach of New Jersey, who couldn't go to the tournament because his mother was ill.
"I thought it was a joke at first by one of my friends," Kim said. "I called Robert and he wished me good luck."
KIM told his mom, left notes for his professors that he'd miss classes and caught a flight to Seoul at noon. A few friends chipped in to give him some spending money.
After an eight-hour layover in Seoul, Kim arrived in Osaka where he won all three of his matches on Sunday (Japan time), beating the world champion, South Korea's Jang Dae Soon, for the gold medal.
"It was my biggest win," said Kim, who lost in the world championships in June in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. His best performances were gold medals in the finweight (110 pounds) class in the U.S. Olympic Festival the last two years.
He wasn't scheduled to be at the Japan Open because it was being conducted in an Olympic-style competition, which recognizes only four heavier weight divisions.
So Kim, the only American to win in Osaka, was left at home because Leach was the 125-pound champion. But Kim still won, despite moving up in weight class.
Kim was sitting at his Waialae-Iki home, he says, lamenting about his misfortunes.
His national teammates were in Japan for the second most important international tournament of the year and he wasn't there. Also, school had just started and he gotten in a fender bender that cost him $900. And his moped was acting up.
"I was sulking and only waiting for Russia," Kim said. Why Russia? He'll be representing UH in the World University Games in St. Petersburg at the end of this month.
THEN came that serendipitous phone call.
Fortunately, Kim had been keeping in shape at the U.S. Taekwondo Center in Aina Haina, where he teaches and is the prized protege of master Dae Sung Lee, a 10-time national champion and former U.S. Olympic coach.
"I'd like to win some more international events and make the (Sydney) Olympics my big bang," he said.
After St. Petersburg, Kim is looking forward to next year's world championships in Hong Kong.
The really big one, though, is the Olympics in the Year 2000 in Australia when the Korean martial art officially becomes an Olympic sport for the first time.
Based on his stunning showing, the 5-foot-8 Honolulu native can be regarded as one of America's best hopes when they go for the taekwondo gold in Sydney.