Jae-Ha Kim

For too long, Asians have had a reputation as being meek, smart, well disciplined and bad at sports. Look at Jeremy Lin. Despite playing at an elite level and leading his high school and college teams to championships, he was overlooked by the NBA. Maybe the instructors saw Kyle and his blue-eyed, blonde-haired friend and assumed that my son would be the weaker swimmer. I’m sure they never heard of Olympic gold medalist swimmer Park Tae-hwan, who is the Michael Phelps of Korea.

Michael Phelps may not have matched Mark Spitz’s record seven gold medals, but the Olympic swimmer has him beat hands-down when it comes to style. The 19-year-old — who won six gold and two bronze medals at last month’s Olympic games in Athens — set tongues wagging when he competed in Speedos that rode down so low on his hips they made Britney Spears’ outfits seem demure by comparison.