Taekwondo tornado Skylar Park looking to attack at Olympics

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This article was published 12/10/2023 (772 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On Tuesday, Winnipeg’s Skylar Park may have gone from Olympic medal contender to odds-on favourite for Paris in 2024.

The 24-year-old Winnipegger did it with dramatic effect, too, defeating Nahid Kiyanichandeh of Iran 2-1 with a last-second win in the women’s 57-kilogram final Tuesday at the Taiyuan World Taekwondo Grand Prix in China.

Kiyanichandeh, the reigning 53-kilogram world champion, was leading in the third and final round when Park scored the winning points — attacking and landing to the body for a one-point margin.

It was the first Grand Prix victory of Park’s career. She had previously won four bronze medals and a silver on the Grand Prix circuit but had been shut out of the podium in two previous events in 2023.

“To compete with all the best athletes out there and to come out on top, you’re essentially the best in the world that day,” said Park Thursday, calling the victory a career highlight. “So yeah, it doesn’t get much better than that.”

Park and her father, long-time coach Jae Park, celebrated wildly after the triumph.

“For that day it makes her the best in the world, right?” said Jae Park. “Obviously, she’s won medals at the Grand Prix and world championships before but never the gold. And just the way it was done with less than a second left — you couldn’t script that any better. The excitement was just jubilation as well as surprise as well as relief and every other emotion as you can think of.”

Park, who currently sits fourth in world rankings, also earned important qualification points for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics.

She beat Stacey Hyman of Australia 2-0 in the round of 16, eliminated 57-kilogram world champion Luana Marton of Hungary 2-0 in the quarter-finals and defeated Ahreum Lee of Korea 2-1 in the semifinals to advance.

Tuesday’s victory came two weeks after Park won gold at the Pan American President’s Cup in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to set the stage for a run at gold at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, Oct. 21-24.

“I had a really good showing at the President’s Cup and I felt really confident and then I just carried that momentum into the Grand Prix and really believed that I could win it and I did,” said Park. “This was the first time I’ve won a major senior title like this. It’s very exciting.”

Park’s breakthrough performance comes after a slow start to the 2023. She failed advance beyond the round of 16 at the world championships in May, admitting she had struggled in competition.

“I’m just beginning to find my footing and starting to create that confidence and build that momentum forward,” said Park. “Obviously, I had a good showing at these past two events, and to top the Grand Prix podium is never easy, but I feel like I’m kind of just figuring myself out, just figuring out where I want to be and there’s still obviously adjustments that can we make for me to be at my best. I’m not quite peaking yet. I still think I have a lot more to give.”

Jae Park said there is no concern about Skylar peaking too soon before the 2024 Olympics. She was favoured to medal at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics before being eliminated during the quarter-finals of the 57-kilogram event.

“We’re not worried about peaking — this is the right time,” said Jae Park. “We still have some improvements to make. We just need that consistency, which she has shown in the last couple of competitions.”

Park said she had been able to rekindle her passion for taekwondo.

“I love the sport and I’ve loved it for as long as I can remember and and that’s why I was successful in the beginning — just because I loved what I was doing,” said Park, a 2016 world junior champion. “I think once there’s pressure and expectations and all those things it can kind of take the joy away but I think I’m finding the joy again in the sport and really having fun out there. I hope that people watching my matches at the Grand Prix could just see how much fun it is.”

Added Jae Park: “It was just her time and she was she was on fire. She was different. She was like she was six, seven years ago when she was just that young athlete coming in hungry and chasing that win as opposed to trying to protect something.”

Park won’t have much time to bask in her victory. She returned to Winnipeg late Thursday night and will have a two-day break before travelling to Santiago, Chile to prep for the Pan American Games. She hopes to improve on her silver-medal performance at the 2019 Pan Am Games.

“I think I was confident 2019 but now, obviously coming off the two major wins, there’s momentum there,” said Park. “There’s a lot more confidence built and I think I’m just such a different athlete than I was 2019. I think the magnitude of the event affected me (in 2019) and I think I’ve worked a lot on my mental game, especially after Tokyo… we’ve worked hard to know how to respond in those big pressure moments in those big matches and I feel really ready.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca