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Ivies in China Feature: Chiu Teng Hiok

Courtesy of the Christian Science Monitor

China’s first Olympic hero may well have been a basketball player about half the size of Yao Ming – who didn’t even play for China. He was a leading scorer for the British in the fabled 1924 Paris Games – a globe-trotting amateur from Amoy whose life as athlete and artist reached wondrous heights before lapsing into unearned obscurity.

Chiu Teng Hiok, the remarkable son of a prominent Chinese pastor, was airbrushed out of history by the political winds of China. Chiu helped Britain win in basketball in a Paris field of 17 teams – the most in any nonmedal sport. In China, he played hoops in missionary schools and YMCAs. In Paris, he dribbled on a grass court at Colombes Stadium, hittingshots termed “pretty” by sportswriters of the day.

In 1924, the British team beat Italy by two points to win the finals in a young sport that got official status in the 1936 Berlin Games.

Once back in England, Chiu the artist emerged as China’s first major modernist painter; in 1929, Queen Mary visited his solo exhibit at the Claridge Gallery in London. By age 30, Chiu had worked on four continents – a post-Impressionist painter without borders. But he never forgot the Paris Games; his art-show catalogs always referred to the Olympics.

Yet prior to the Beijing Olympics, the achievement of China’s native son received not even a footnote. Barely mentioned also are three Chinese tennis players invited to Paris, including national champion L. Wei, who came in 19th in men’s singles out of a field of 82, according to International Olympic Committee records that list them playing for “China.”

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