All-Asian team poised for 1st race

Jamie Chen crouched near the fence at Bill Armstrong Stadium, her feet firmly planted in the cinder that covers the bicycle track as she surveyed the women riding around it. Her hair was covered with a black bandana as she looked around the track, breathing heavily as she soaked everything in.\n"I'm tired," she said.\nShe should be.\nNot only does Chen pedal as hard as every other woman on the Little 500 track, sometimes she thinks she is carrying an entire culture on her back.\nChen is captain of the Alpha Zeta Nu cycling team, the first all-Asian women's team to ever compete in the race. She and her AZN teammates said they are proud to represent their culture.\n"Since we know Little 5 is the huge event at IU, we just want to be the first one," she said, standing next to teammate Diana Zhao. "It's tough, but we have to be the first one."\nChen and Zhao said they are fighting an uphill battle trying to compete with the mostly white women's field.\nChen said Americans are more known for their athleticism, whereas Asians are known for their study habits.\n"Look around you," Zhao said. "Everyone here is pretty much white. The events around campus are pretty much white. I don't know many Asian girls who are active."\nFor a group of women who had little cycling experience before this year, the team unified with the motto "We've got guts."\n"At first, we were frustrated," she said. "But we just keep saying 'We've got guts.' We just try to show our Asian spirits."\nBut on qualifications day, their first day to gauge the rest of the competition, Zhao said she thought it might take more than guts to carry AZN. She said the team had to "step out of our box."\n"It was intimidating to come out on the field and see how fast they were," Zhao said of the other teams. "I hadn't realized this was such a big time commitment."\nThey posted a 3-minute, 20.410 seconds qualification time, good enough for the 30th spot in the field.\nRace Coordinator Lucas Calhoun said he is excited to have an all-Asian team for the first time in race history.\n"We're really trying to, as an organization, not only put on the events we do, but really be involved on campus," he said.\nCalhoun said he was disappointed when the men's all-Asian team, ACC, was cut from competition. ACC qualified 34th, one spot out of race eligibility.\n"When riders have a cause like that, they stay really motivated," Calhoun said. "You're really riding for a purpose. If you're riding for a group that has never raced before, that's really an accomplishment."\nBut not all Asians are supportive, Chen and Zhao said.\n"A lot of my friends who are Asian are like, 'You aren't gonna make it,'" Chen said.\n"Some of my friends are like, 'Well, maybe you should just give up,'" Zhao said.\nNot all other riders have been supportive, either. Chen said she has seen some of the best and some of the worst in other riders in how they react to AZN. She said Teter rider Sarah Reicke and the all-Latina team Mezcla have been very helpful in AZN's quest to compete in Little 500.\nWith their help, Chen said AZN is focused to finish the race, but Zhao said she thinks the team can do better than just finishing.\n"Just don't try to be the last one," she said.