Park aims at podium

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This article was published 19/07/2024 (438 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Skylar Park has put in years of training and competition to get to where she is today but the potential payoff for her labours will be squeezed into one solitary day at the Summer Olympics.

Aug. 8, 2024. It’s been marked on her calendar for months.

The 25-year-old Winnipegger, ranked fourth in the world in the 57-kilogram women’s division and Canada’s best hope for a taekwondo medal at the Summer Olympics in Paris, is making final preparations that she hopes will put her on the podium.

It will take four consecutive victories on Aug. 8 to earn a gold medal.

“A main thing leading into these Games that I’ve learned, especially from my experience in Tokyo and then other major games within the past three years, is that you don’t have to do really anything crazy or special just because it’s the Olympic Games,” said Skylar Park Friday afternoon. “We prepare to perform for every event and so obviously our preparations heightened and everything’s heightened for the Olympic Games. I think our day-in, day-out preparations are nothing crazy.”

Park’s Olympic debut in Tokyo three years ago didn’t go as planned. A projected trip to the podium was interrupted by an 18-7 quarter-final loss to Taiwan’s Chia-Ling Lo.

“I don’t know if it was the training load so much — I think just from my perspective, the pressure that I put on my training sessions and thinking that everything had to be hard and everything had to be crazy and spectacular and all those things,” said Skylar Park. “And so I’m going into this event with a much different mindset…

“I internalized a lot (in 2021) and felt very overwhelmed, especially in the days leading up to to leaving for the Games. There were a lot of tears and there was a lot of stress. I think a lot of fear as well.”

Much has changed in three years.

Park is a more mature and seasoned competitor. Last fall, she defeating Nahid Kiyanichandeh of Iran 2-1 with a last-second win in the women’s 57-kilogram final at the Taiyuan World Taekwondo Grand Prix in China.

Kiyanichandeh, currently ranked No. 2 in the world, was leading in the third and final round when Park scored the winning points for the first Grand Prix victory of her career. She had previously captured 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.

Weeks later, Park earned gold at the Pan Am Games in Chile and it appeared her competitive career had reached a tipping point.

“From 2017 she was always looking for the top of the podium at the top international events and she was unlucky in most of the Grand Prixs — she ended up losing to the eventual winner,” said her father and coach Jae Park. “And that was a tough pill to swallow, simply because she was just nipping at the heels but just really couldn’t get there. Last year, she was able to actually win one of the Grand Prixs and she won at the Pan Am Games.

“So she’s had really good success the last half of the year, the back half, which is the most important when it comes to succeeding at the most important competitions.”

Those successes brought Park some peace of mind, too.

“I think a big thing that I realized is just the mental piece to that,” said Skylar Park. “I’m just getting myself there every day in practice and bringing myself back to that place (of winning the Grand Prix). Not to recreate that moment at all, but I know the intensity that I have to have and the mindset that I have to have going into an event for it to be successful. Having that confidence of winning that event and knowing that I can do it obviously brings a lot into my preparation for Paris.”

Park believes anyone of the top five or seven ranked competitors has a chance to win gold.

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However, if the competition in Paris is true to form, Park could face fifth-ranked Hatice Kubra Ilgun of Türkiye or South Korea’s Yu-jin Kim, ranked 26th, in the quarter-finals. Should she advance to the semifinals, China’s No. 1-ranked Zongshi Lou could be Park’s opposition.

“There’s a lot of upsets that do happen,” said Jae Park. “There’s athletes that shouldn’t medal that do and there’s a lot of different outcomes at the Olympics. I think you have to be — especially for the Olympics — you have to be performing on that day, at that moment. That’s what creates an Olympic champion.”

Skylar Park, who will be assisted in France by her brothers and training partners, Tae-Ku and Braven, believes she is better prepared than ever.

“My physical abilities — strength, conditioning, all those kinds of things — are there,” said Skylar Park. “My techniques in the ring, my tactics and everything seem to be coming and accumulating at the right time for me to perform my best come Paris. I think everything’s going in the right direction. But a big piece now and the majority of what our training is now, as we lead into the Games, is that mental piece and making sure I’m on mentally and doing all those things correctly.”

mike.sawatzky@freepress.mb.ca