Skip to main contentBest Olympics Hopeful You’ve Never Heard Of
Three months ago, Diamond Wheeler accomplished a feat unlike any of those attempted by her classmates at Lincoln High School. The 17-year-old senior with a quick smile and even quicker feet outscored one of Hungary's top young fencers to become the 2009 Cadet World Fencing Champion in the saber division, a title that puts Diamond on track to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.
It's not as though that was an accident. Diamond's ascent to the highest level of competition for teenage fencers is the result of many deliberate moves—on and off the piste, the 14-meter-long rectangular strip Diamond dominated at the April world championship in Belfast. Diamond and her parents, Fred and Shu Wheeler, moved to Portland in 2004 from Texas specifically because Diamond wanted to train with Ed Korfanty, head coach of the Oregon Fencing Alliance, who recently led Beaverton-born Mariel Zagunis to two Olympic gold medals (in Athens in 2004 and Beijing in 2008). "He's the best coach in the world," says Fred Wheeler in a tone that suggests he is relaying a fact, not a boast.
Korfanty is equally impressed by Diamond, who was ranked fourth at the junior level and ninth at the senior level for saber fencers as of July. On a break from a recent practice, Korfanty called Diamond's athletic style a "chess game on the strip." Diamond, Korfanty says, methodically prepares every one of her moves, even though the saber (at more than 1 meter long) is considered the fastest of the three weapons used in fencing. For now, London isn't the only destination on Diamond's horizon. The mostly-A student also hopes to go to Cambridge—as a student at Harvard in 2010. BETH SLOVIC.
Best Ass-Kicking Distiller
A chick who makes rum for a living and could take you down with a reverse spinning hook kick—sound like the woman of your dreams? Well, she's real, and her name is Mel Heim. Heim has been distilling rum for Rogue Distillery (1339 NW Flanders St., 222-5910, rogue.com) in the Pearl for over a year, holding her own as one of only a handful of female distillers in the country. "I feel like I have to prove myself," Heim says. But the 25-year-old Portland native has been quick to establish a strong reputation, mastering operation of the entire Rogue distillery in just six weeks thanks to guidance from previous distiller Alex Gund. Dominating in the still house comes as no surprise, considering Heim's history dominating the mat as the youngest black belt in Oregon in 1992 at age 9. She has since earned a second-degree black belt and a teaching belt in tae kwon do. These days, though, Heim is more likely to open up a bottle of Hazelnut Spice Rum than a can of whoop-ass. EMILY JENSEN.
Best Inadvisable New Sport
Put on some durable pants, climb up to a reasonable height and fling yourself downward:
a new species of urban recreation in which participants
is apparently popular enough that Levi's has sponsored three championships at Santa Monica Pier. California may host the majors, but it was Portland that brought the sport to the attention of the Interwebs this spring, when YouTube user
posted a montage, titled "Powersliding Is Not a Crime," of Stumptown youth careening with disregard for life and limb down rails, stairs and hills at Pioneer Place and Washington Park.
They are immature, annoying, a danger to themselves and everyone around them—and they look like they're having a total blast. If you need me, I'll be sliding down the handrails on the stairs below Westover. BEN WATERHOUSE.
Best Female Wrestling Team
is changing what it means to punch—not to mention arm bar, naked choke and guillotine—like a girl. Since 2006, this Southeast Portland gym has been training Portland women to
(check the acronym). That means Muay Thai kickboxing, Brazilian jujitsu and submission wrestling—basically MMA, or mixed martial arts, which is rapidly supplanting boxing as America's blood sport of choice. G.I.R.L.S. Gym coach
is a professional fighter with five bouts under her belt—one of a growing number of women looking to beat ass alongside the boys who dominate the sport. But G.I.R.L.S. isn't just about training competitors. It's about endowing women with the confidence that comes with physical fitness—and knowing how to rapidly cut off blood flow to an opponent's brain. ETHAN SMITH.
Best Rollin’ Restauranteur
Most nights, you can spy Chris Custer walking through a Cena (7742 SE 13th Ave., 206-3291, acenapdx.com), the cozy Italian trattoria he owns in Sellwood. But years ago, the restaurant biz veteran rolled. Back in 1980, at the tender age of 18, Custer dropped out of high school in Portland to become a professional dance roller skater in New York City, donning a unitard and legwarmers to perform synchronized routines to disco hits like Teena Marie's "Square Biz" at Studio 54.
"Roller skating was all the rage," he says. "I made $20,000 that year. I skated with Cher at the Roxy." His group, Mixed Company, "a girl, myself, a Latino kid and a black kid," roller-danced all over New York. He'd often spend 18 hours a day in his beloved pair of $1,000 boots—black with blue Metaflex wheels…no toe stops.
Twenty-nine years later, he still has the boots and he still skates in 'em. "A Cena sponsored the Break Neck Betties [roller derby team] last year," he says. "They all came to dinner…and skated all around the restaurant. Me with them." But he's not contemplating a return to the pro circuit. "When roller skating comes back in 2010, my daughter Raka's gonna be big," he boasts. "She's learning to skate at Oaks Park. She just graduated from kindergarten." KELLY CLARKE.
Best Lean Chef de Cuisine
Until last year,
attracted euphemism. When
named his restaurant,
the 2007 Restaurant of the Year, we described him as a "quarterback." In a profile on portlandfoodanddrink.com, Elizabeth Lopeman called him "robust" with "a large frame." The gist—Gorham is a big guy and, well, heavy. Or was, anyway, until he woke up with chest pain two years ago.
"I thought I had a heart attack," he says. "My chest was killing me. I got up that morning and went to work and [then] spent all day looking up symptoms of heart attacks, and decided to go to the hospital." The doctor told him nothing was wrong (something was—the culprit turned out to be Gorham's gall bladder, which he'd had removed six months later), but Gorham wasn't sure. "I thought, something is just hurting me from the inside...I gotta change."
So he stopped eating after work ("in three weeks I lost 20 pounds"), started exercising ("bought a road bike, joined a gym, lost 60 or 70 pounds"), had gall bladder surgery ("another 20 pounds") and found himself a much smaller man. "When I came out of the hospital, I looked like hell. It wasn't a good weight loss," he said. "I think I was burning muscle." Then Gorham heard about Team in Training, a sports training program that raises money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. "As soon as I could get back on my feet, I went to them," Gorham says. At the end of June he ran, biked and swam a triathlon. ("My goal was 3.5 hours, and I did it in 3 hours 17 minutes.")
These days Gorham, lean and muscular, hardly looks like the same chef. "Longtime friends won't even recognize me," he says. "They'll come up and look at me like I'm a stranger." But has the experience of losing 100 pounds changed his cooking? " Yes and no," he says. "I'm not going to go and be preachy about it.... I'm definitely taking on more stuff from farmers now than we ever have. We've grown the vegetable options we have on the menu." But, he's quick to add, he's not about to ditch the duck-liver mousse. "I eat the same things. I just eat less of them…. I'm gonna eat what I want to eat, and the only way to counterbalance that is to burn calories." BEN WATERHOUSE.
Best Talking Head
had a journeyman's stint in the NBA, scoring 6.2 points per game in six seasons for four teams, including the Trail Blazers. And his coaching career was less than middling, with a 54-91 record in five seasons at the University of Portland. But the 47-year-old Holton has found new basketball life as
during pregame, halftime and postgame TV segments. Holton excels at dissecting X's and O's conversationally enough that the analysis appeals to the mainline fan. Yet his breakdown of plays and players contains enough insider's insight for hoops junkies. And unlike too-somber sports talking heads,
chuckling each time host Tony Luftman sets him up with "tell 'em what they've won" lines during the rundown of out-of-town scores. We'll rip off the conceit: Tell 'em what Holton has won,
: "A Best of Portland." HENRY STERN.
Best Bird-Humane Golf Course
Each evening, between Nov. 1 and April 1, Skye and Abbey are treated to a tour of
with assistant superintendent Fred Hickerson, who lets them off the golf cart to chase Canada geese wherever they may congregate. Skye, a border collie, and Abbey, an Australian shepherd, are trained
According to the Audubon Society of Portland, using dogs to haze geese is a preferred and humane method for dealing with the flocks of geese, numbering in the hundreds, that converge on the open fairways every fall. Although no courses in Portland use lethal control measures, such as those used until very recently in Seattle, Heron Lakes is the only course with its own set of hazing dogs. And that's not Heron Lakes' only claim to bird-friendly fame—it's also the only golf course in Portland that can boast its own
AARON MENDELSON.
WWeek 2015