Yang Chuan-kwang

Yang Chuan-kwang, or C.K. Yang (Chinese: 楊傳廣; pinyin: Yáng Chuánguǎng) (10 July 1933 in Taitung, Taiwan – January 27, 2007 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 73), was an Olympic decathlete from the Republic of China.^[1]

Known as the "Iron Man of Asia," Yang won the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1954 Asian Games, and he again won the gold medal in the decathlon in the 1958 Asian Games, and in addition, the silver medals in both the 110 m hurdles and the long jump, and the bronze medal in the 400 m hurdles. Yang's first Olympic Games competition was at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia, where he finished in eighth place in the decathlon.

Yang's most memorable decathlon competition was a duel with Rafer Johnson, his good friend and fellow track and field teammate at University of California at Los Angeles, during the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Going into the final event of the decathlon, the 1500 meter run, Yang trailed Johnson by just 67 points in the decathlon competition, but Johnson hung on to win the gold medal, with Yang winning the silver medal. Yang actually topped Johnson in all four track events, plus the three jumping or vaulting events, but the large margins in points that Johnson attained in the three throwing events (the shot put, the discus throw, and the javelin throw) was big enough to make Johnson the winner, and to put Yang in second place - the decathlon silver medalist.

In 1963, Yang set a new world indoor record in the pole vault among decathlon competitors [1], and the next year, he competed again in the decathlon in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, finishing in fifth place.

Yang was a member of the Amis tribe of Taiwanese aborigines. He had a wife, Daisy, and two sons: Cedric Yang (Yang Sui-yuen) and C.K. Yang, Jr.

Yang, who contracted liver cancer in 2001 while he was the president of the National Sports Training Center at Kaohsiung, died on January 27, 2007, due to a massive stroke.^[2] He is buried in Ivy Lawn Memorial Park in Ventura, California.^[3]

See also

• Men's pole vault indoor world record progression

References

External links

• The Games of the XVII Olympiad, Rome 1960: Official Report of the Organizing Committee, The Organizing Committee of the Games of the XVII Olympiad, 1960.
  • Volume 1, Yang's entry and vital statistics in the List of Athletes, p. 832
  • Volume 2 Part 1, results and nine photographs of Yang during and after the decathlon competition, pp. 160–178
• Database Olympics
• UCLA notice about C.K. Yang's death
• (Chinese) Asian Iron Man: Yang Chuan-kuang dies of illness, Apple Daily, January 29, 2007
• Taiwan Culture Portal: The Life and Legend of Taiwan's first Olympic medalist "Asian Iron Man" C.K. Yang (in English)