Rio Olympics 2016: Long Beach athletes enjoy another golden summer

It was another golden summer for Long Beach and neighboring communities, as the Press-Telegram area’s athletes turned out an impressive haul of Olympic medals and memories.

In all, the unofficial Team Long Beach delegation are coming back home with three gold medals and a bronze.

Two of the gold medalists belong to a squad that could unofficially be called Long Beach’s own, the USA women’s water polo team. Much of the roster lives in the city, and many are well-known around town. That would include Rachel Fattal, a Seal Beach native who played for Los Alamitos High, and Courtney Mathewson, who coached at Long Beach City College for two years. Both earned gold medals with a dominant 12-5 win over Italy in the championship Olympic match. (Fattal scored a pair of goals and Mathewson added another in the win.)

It was an emotional win for coach Adam Krikorian, whose brother died shortly before the team’s first Olympic match. The team showed its support for Krikorian after wiing a second straight gold medal by taking off their gold medals and each placing them around his neck.

“It means my neck hurts for a few seconds,” he said during the postgame press conference. “Honestly, though, it means a ton. No doubt. I’m not going to say that it doesn’t make your heart warm.”

The Americans became the first women’s team ever to win back-to-back Olympic golds in the sport.

The other golden athlete was Compton High alum DeMar DeRozan, who claimed the world’s top prize with the USA men’s basketball team. DeRozan averaged six points per game and piled up a number of impressive highlight dunks during the USA’s undefeated run to gold.

The bronze medal in volleyball was one of the most dramatic of the Games, as Long Beach State alum David Lee helped lead Team USA back from a 2-0 deficit to Russia to snare a 15-12 fifth-set comeback win.

Lee was competing in his third Olympics, having won gold in 2008. He had nine kills and two blocks in the medal match, including critical back-to-back points in the fifth set.

The Olympics won’t leave all Long Beach competitors with fond memories, of course. Five-time Olympian Tony Azevedo, a Wilson alum and the captain of the USA men’s water polo team, was heartbroken that the Americans didn’t advance out of pool play.

No other American has been on five Olympic water polo teams in the sport, but the 34-year-old captain wasn’t ready to rule out a run at Tokyo in 2020.

“Right now I’m just pretty depressed,” he said in the postgame press conference. “I’m going to spend all day at the beach tomorrow and then go home (to Long Beach). I’ll finish my professional career … and then I’ll decide what I want to do in the future.”

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Azevedo’s father, Ricardo, was in his second Olympics coaching the Chinese women’s national team, which lost a quarterfinal match to eventual silver medalist Italy. Azevedo said he’s done coaching internationally for now and is returning home to Long Beach to consider his next steps.

Amy Cragg Hastings, who was born in Long Beach but raised out of state, took ninth in the marathon with a time of 2:28.25. Long Beach native Jamie Subhandi’s doubles team went 0-3 at the Olympics in the badminton tournament, while Compton natives Serena and Venus Williams (who have eight gold medals between them already) were surprise early outs in both the singles and doubles brackets.

Poly alum Ariana Washington was a member of the women’s 4x100 track team but did not run, with 400 meter veteran Allyson Felix taking her spot in the prelims and finals. It was a good Olympics overall for Long Beach State sprinters coach LaTanya Sheffield, as she coached the American relays to gold (per Olympic tradition, coaches do not receive medals, only athletes).

MEDALISTS

DEMAR DEROZAN: GOLD

RACHEL FATTAL: GOLD

COURTNEY MATHEWSON: GOLD

DAVID LEE: BRONZE