Tragic day for volleyball and Olympic community following deadly Drum Tower knife attack
August 10, 2008
August 9, 2008 will go down as a dark day in Olympic history as tragedy struck in Beijing. The father of former USA Olympic volleyball player Elisabeth Bachman was murdered in a knife attack by a Chinese man later identified as 47 year old Tang Yongming.
Todd Bachman’s daughter Elisabeth is married to Hugh McCutcheon who is the current head coach of the men’s volleyball team. McCutcheon hails from New Zealand and represented his country both indoors and on the beach.
The attack comes despite a strong security presence on the streets of Beijing. The other night when I was out you could see Police about every 100m along the streets.
The Drum Tower is about 7km’s from the main Olympic stadium. It is nestled amongst a large number of Hutong dwellings and does not receive a large number of tourists. I would assume that a Policeman was not posted at the top of the tower
My wife grew up in the shadow of the Drum Tower. As a result I have been there on many occasions. I have never seen it as a dangerous place to visit or feel that the streets in that area are dangerous.
The top of the Drum Tower is in a way a remote tourist destination. I have never seen that many people there as getting to the top involves an arduous climb up 100 or so steep stairs. I was there myself Saturday 2nd August. At the time I saw about 5 foreign tourists and a few Chinese tourists.
The attack makes me feel slightly apprehensive when now going out on the streets of Beijing. I have to admit I have never felt threatened during all my visits to Beijing. The only thing here is that a westerner obviously stands out in a crowd and can become an easy target. More often than not a westerner is a target for a keen hawker looking to sell their goods.
As a past volleyball player I feel for the volleyball community, especially that of southern California where the victims daughter resides.
Todd Bachman was the Chairman and CEO of Minneapolis based flower empire Bachman’s Inc., he was 62 years old.
A photo of Todd Bachman and his wife can be viewed at the Bitten and Bound blog.
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