A Moment of Silence, and Then Yanks Taste Victory in Volleyball

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The New York Sun

BEIJING — In its Olympic debut here, the American men’s volleyball team barely managed to eke out a victory over Venezuela, playing just one day after the father-in-law of the American head coach was stabbed to death at a popular tourist site near the main Olympic venues.

RELATED: Survivor of Stabbing Attack Upgraded to Stable Condition.

The unexpectedly difficult match for the American squad yesterday followed the bizarre attack Saturday afternoon on the family of the top coach, Hugh McCutcheon. According to Chinese and American Olympic officials, a Chinese man wielding a knife repeatedly stabbed McCutcheon’s in-laws, Todd and Barbara Bachman, and a Chinese tour guide. The assailant then leapt to his death from a balcony at the Drum Tower, which was used to broadcast the time to Beijing residents in an earlier era, officials said.

Todd Bachman, 62, died from his wounds. Barbara Bachman was in “critical but stable” condition yesterday after undergoing eight hours of surgery at a Beijing hospital, according to a statement from the U.S. Olympic Committee.

“Obviously, hearing the news was tragic — words can’t describe,” the team’s captain, Thomas Hoff, said at a press conference after yesterday’s match. “All the team felt that feeling of helplessness and just wondering what we were going to do.”

The loss came as a particular blow to the team because the Bachmans were a regular presence at volleyball events and tournaments, cheering on their daughter, Elisabeth, who played on the American women’s Olympic squad at Athens in 2004 and later married McCutcheon. “We really felt the loss as one of our own. That’s why it really hurt so much is — it’s so close,” Hoff said.

Players said they didn’t think anything serious was amiss when McCutcheon abruptly left practice Saturday after taking a phone call. “We were in the middle of practice and we saw him leave,” a team veteran, Lloy Ball, told reporters. “You know the Olympics. It could be for anything. It could be you guys want an interview. It could be problems with tickets or logistics or practices. We didn’t know.”

Members of the team sensed trouble a few hours later when top volleyball and U.S. Olympic Committee officials showed up for a team meeting. “We knew something was wrong,” Ball said.

After the initial shock and an outpouring of concern for the coach and his family, players began to wonder if their own families were safe and if Americans were being targeted. “We didn’t know if it was something related to U.S.A. athletes or U.S.A. volleyball, or a random act of violence, which we now know it was,” Ball said.

Chinese officials have not described a motive for the attack, which they said was carried out by a former meter company employee, Tang Yongming, 47, of Hangzhou. While it would have been evident that the Bachmans were foreigners, they were not wearing any American insignia or flags at the time of the tour, officials said.

Notwithstanding those assertions, the Australian Olympic team reportedly instructed its members to wear their Australian uniforms in the city to avoid being mistaken for Americans.

McCutcheon skipped yesterday’s game to attend to his family, giving the assistant coach, Ronald Larsen, a battlefield promotion he described as unwanted. “I’d much rather be sitting on the bench telling him what I think he should be doing and having him say, ‘I don’t think so,’ rather than be where I am right now,” Larsen said.

McCutcheon gave some encouragement to the team by phone Saturday night, but there was no word on when, or if, he will return to the Olympics. “We’re completely aware that we may see him, we may not,” Hoff said. “That’s completely all right with us. He has priorities that he needs to take care of.”

On the court before yesterday’s match, the Americans locked arms in a circle to observe what they called “a moment of silence” to remember the Bachman and McCutcheon families. While Olympic protocol is exceedingly strict, Hoff noted, “They weren’t going to start without us.”

America got off to a strong start, defeating Venezuela, 25-18, in each of the first two sets. However, at midmatch, the Americans seemed to lose focus and dropped the next two sets, 22-25 and 21-25, before regrouping and finishing the Venezuelans off, 15-10.

“On paper, obviously, it’s a team that we should beat,” Ball said. The American “team just relaxed a little bit and in a tournament like this, as soon as you relax, that means your focus goes away, the other team’s focus picks up. … Of course, then we were in a dogfight all the way to the end. Luckily we were able to regain our composure there in the fifth set,” he said.

Ball said his wife told him she and their two children would not let the tragedy deter them from flying in to join him. “Unfortunately, bad things happen in Fort Wayne, Ind., where we’re from, every day,” he quoted his wife, Sarah, as saying. “But we still go to Coney Island downtown. We still go get gas, still go to Wal-Mart, and that’s how you kind of have to live your life.”


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