Olympic Taewkowndo Champ Steve Lopez Chats w/ Jim Clash

Two-time Olympic Taekwondo gold medalist Steve Lopez (and his bother Mark and sister Diana, both Olympians as well) discuss their participation in the upcoming games in Beijing.

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• Clash
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• Diana
• Mark
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[seanyglass]

@crisss2001 To be honest the US fighters are not as strong right now as previous US teams have been. Jean is a good coach and so is Juan Moreno. Good teams are cyclical, and every country goes through ups and downs on the world level.

[seanyglass]

@pawnworks Sport Taekwondo in my opinion is a faster, more technical, more dynamic culmination of Taekwondo. Boxing, Judo, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, and Freestyle/Greco-Roman wrestling are all sports, yet I don't see anyone saying, "Hey, I want to see how Jimmy Pedro (JUDO), Manny Pacquiao (BOXING), or Cael Sanderson (WRESTLING), or Royce Gracie (BJJ), demonstrate their skills in street defense." The bottom line is even though these are all sports, they are all street capable disciplines.

[crisss2001]

USA Taekwondo Ignores reality and keeps putting the wrong team on the floor... despite adequate time and resources Jean Lopez failed to make satisfactory headway in gaining a gold medal team ... time for a new coach and a new team. Misguided efforts!!

[PubliusAfricanus]

God, Mark pisses me off.

[MegaLink08]

No, they were born in the United States from Nicaraguan parents.

[xALEXMATEx]

Steven & Mark ;)

Wow .. there hot!

[pawnworks]

I would like to see his self defence taekwondo.His focus of course is on sport tkd.I wonder how good he is at self defence.

[gingacapoman]

Seems like good news that a Taekwondo athlete will be representing Peru in the 2008 Olympic Games for the first time. Unfortunately this athlete has lived most of his life in the U.S., trains with Controversial 2x Olympic Gold Medalist and World Champ Steven Lopez (and the rest of the Lopez clan) and until the United States Taekwondo Organization had a major over-haul Peter Lopez (no relationship to the above Steven Lopez and family) was a member of the U.S. Team.

[gingacapoman]

I would be celebrating if it were one of the other members or if Peter Lopez hadn't joined the Peruvian National Team for his own selfish motives.

Don't get me wrong, my husband personally knows him, he's still friends with him, even offered him a place to stay when he came down to do a seminar in Peru. He (Peter Lopez) took advantage of the situation and is accomplishing what he's always dreamed of as an athlete.

[gingacapoman]

The Federation has never had a history of extending this same courtesy to their veteran athletes or ANY of their athletes for that matter. In fact the OTHER athletes have to raise their own funds in order to travel and compete and they are not paid a monthly stipend from the Federation for being on the National Team.