WTF World Para Taekwondo Championships, St Petersburg, Russia

Hi everyone,

The story of my success at the recent WTF World Para Taekwondo Championships starts over a year ago now. This story starts 8 weeks before the competition. I was uncertain if I could make it to St Petersburg as I was battling to overcome my hip injury. I was devastated that I might miss my opportunity to better my Bronze from last year. Weekly I was seeing a specialist sports doctor, a physio and also a myotherapist. Training at this stage had been reduced to light gym work and cardio on the bike. Two weeks later the hip pain settled down enough for me to return to light training. I discussed with Carlo my thoughts on this competition from my experiences last year with the rule changes and we developed a specific training program to suit. The current Para Taekwondo Competition rules are:

1. No head kicks (Something I am really opposed to)
2. And 3 by 1 minute rounds

My focus for the rule changes and this competition were high intensity training in short bursts and to develop my turning kicks to the body (worth 2 points). With three weeks to go my hip was still not right so the doctor suggested a cortisone injection. I had nothing to lose at this stage and within 24hours I was completely pain free. Now I had confidence in my body again we stepped up the training. Carlo wrote a program for me:

I did this program for two weeks. The final week the focus was high intensity 45 minute Team Carlo Training sessions, with recovery substituting all other sessions. The day of the competition I drew Russia, Finland then Iran. I told myself and my coach, Henk Meijer that I had three fights and that I had to be there in the final (physiologically this is important). My first fight against Russia I was filled with excitement, nerves and adrenalin. My first round did not go good due to this. After the fight Henk was clear in telling me “at this level you cannot afford to have a bad round”. The second fight went smoothly and when I was clearly on top I switched from winning to conserving my body and preventing injuries for the final. Standing centre court for the final I was focused. I kept telling myself this is it, perhaps my only chance to win gold, three minutes to go, no holding back. With that mind set I went out to fight and kicked whenever I felt there was an opportunity to score. Due to the shortened round times this competition had less game play (like in our regular Vics/Nationals tournaments) and more pressure and speed. It wasn’t until the end of the second round where I had a small lead. Going into the third my opponent rushed his attacks (a mistake in any competition) and this gave me the opportunity to capitalize and end up winning comfortably.

Finally standing on the podium, being awarded the gold medal and listening to our National Anthem it all dawned on me. My vision and my dream had come true. All that hard work, training and discipline had finally paid off. This moment has been my most rewarding and satisfying achievement and I will leave you with this:

If you have a dream, believe in yourself that you can achieve it and do what it takes to live that dream.

Cheers,

Steve