Monday,
January 11, 1999
Kick Kills Taekwondo Black Belt
Tragedy:
Head injury to Danish celebrity in
Anaheim appears to be first fatality
in U.S. championship's eight years.
By JASON
LEOPOLD, Special to The Times
In what was
believed to be the first fatality in
an official U.S. taekwondo
tournament, a budding 25-year-old
Danish rock star collapsed and died
after being kicked in the head by his
opponent during a match Saturday
evening at the Anaheim Convention
Center.
Michael
Richard Strube of Aalborg, Denmark,
was lead singer for a popular Danish
dance band, Point, and also had a
successful career as a model,
appearing in television commercials
and magazines, according to news
organizations in Copenhagen.
Strube, 25,
performed with two female dancers who
worked with him at a Danish modeling
agency. The group was about to
release its third recording.
Strube was
a second-degree black belt who had
studied the Korean martial art for
about six years. He arrived in
Anaheim late last week with other
members of the Danish team to take
part in the eighth annual United
States Open Taekwondo Championship on
Friday and Saturday. The competition
is open to black belts only.
"He
was one of the finest fighters in
Denmark," said Strube's trainer,
Christian Jorgensen, who worked with
him at Aalborg's Taekwondo Club in
Copenhagen.
Julie
Naeslund, 20, of Copenhagen, one of
the singer-dancers who performed with
Strube, expressed shock over his
death. "I can't believe this
happened.
Everybody
looked up to him. He was such a
popular guy and everyone looked up to
him."
Jay
Warwick, executive director of the
United States Taekwondo Union in
Colorado Springs, Colo., was flying
to California on Sunday to meet with
tournament officials about Strube's
death. He said he believed it
"was an unfortunate
accident," but "a full
investigation by the union will be
launched."
Warwick
said this was the first fatality he
was aware of in the eight years the
tournament has been held.
Strube, who
was wearing head protection, was
kicked in the head during a match
against a member of another team and
collapsed about 4 p.m. Warwick could
not immediately identify Strube's
opponent.
Anaheim
paramedics, who responded to a 911
call from the Convention Center, said
Strube was in cardiac arrest when
they arrived. They tried to revive
him using cardiopulmonary
resuscitation and transported him to
UCI Medical Center in Orange, where
he was pronounced dead at 10:20 p.m.,
a hospital spokeswoman said.
"I
think it's a freak accident,"
said Chan Yong Kim, owner of Oriental
Moo Do in Cerritos and a former
referee for the 1988 and 1992 United
States Taekwondo Olympic teams.
"I've never seen or heard of
anything like this happening in the
50 years I've been involved in
taekwondo." Kim, who did not
witness the match, said six students
from his school who participated in
the tournament and his son told him
the news. Kim, who was the referee
chairman for the World Taekwondo
Federation for nine years, said
participants in all competitions are
required to wear head, arm and leg
protection, and a physical is
performed to ensure fitness for
fighting.
"That's
why this is so shocking," he
said, "because from what I
understand he was healthy and wearing
the required protective gear. I don't
have any clue what else could have
happened."
An autopsy
Sunday revealed Strube died of
cranial hemorrhaging caused by blunt
trauma to the head, said a spokesman
for the Orange County coroner's
division.
Strube's
mother, Susie Andersen, a resident of
Copenhagen, was unavailable for
immediate comment.