Winnipeg’s Skylar Park takes the long road to taekwondo bronze at the Olympic Games

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This article was published 08/08/2024 (754 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

PARIS – Spurred by a bit of luck, Skylar Park went the distance to reach the Olympic podium in Paris.

Park defeated Lebanon’s Laetitia Aoun 2-0 for a bronze medal in women’s taekwondo Thursday evening almost 12 hours after her first match of the day, and long after her 5:40 a.m. alarm.

“I don’t think it’s sunk in yet, but when that final buzzer went off, it was just pure joy and gratitude for what we’ve been through as a team and my family and everything all combined,” Park said.

The 25-year-old from Winnipeg alluded to an injury she was reluctant to discuss, saying “eight months ago, I didn’t know if I’d be well enough to be here and competing.”

Park, who fights in the 57-kilogram division, won her morning bout 2-0 over Dominika Hronova of Czechia before dropping her afternoon quarterfinal 2-0 to Kim Yujin of South Korea.

The Canadian needed Kim to win her semifinal to get into a repechage match, and still have a chance to compete for a medal.

So it was a tense wait in the Grand Palais stands for the athlete and her family until Kim obliged by defeating top-seeded Luo Zongshi of China.

“I just kind of sat there bracing my mom’s arms the whole time while we watched that semifinal go down,” Park said.

The fourth-seeded Park defeated Turkey’s Hatice Kubra Ilgan 2-0 in the repechage to reach one of the two bronze-medal matches in Olympic taekwondo, and then won her second straight match to ascend the podium.

“It’s been a whirlwind,” said her coach and father Jae. “Now we’re sitting here with a bronze medal for Canada.

“Only the few can come to the Olympics, and out of that, only the few can win a medal. You have to be on that day. You’ve got to have a little bit of luck on your side as well too, which we did.”

Park lost her quarterfinal match in her Olympic debut three years ago. She didn’t get a repechage to get back in the medal hunt. She told Jae in Tokyo ‘Dad, this is so different.'”

“Those feelings still arose,” Park said Thursday. “The emotions still came. It was just that I knew how to deal with them.”

Taekwondo is a Park family affair. Some 16 members of the extended Park clan have black belts.

Jae coached all three children — Skylar and younger brothers Tae-Ku and Braven — at the 2023 Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

The Park siblings have been each other’s sparring partners their entire lives. Their home’s basement is filled with treadmills, bikes, a rowing machine and taekwondo sparring mats.

Tae-Ku (pronounced TAY-goo) was her training partner in Tokyo and again in Paris, although Braven stepped in when his brother was nursing an injury before the Olympic Games.

“When I qualify for the games, it wasn’t that Skylar qualified, it was that Team Park qualified and so the same thing goes today. Team Park won a bronze medal,” Skylar said.

In Paris, Skylar and her father routinely left the athletes’ village and headed to the hotel where her brothers stayed.

“We could all train together to keep that bond, keep tight-knit and not change too much,” Tae-Ku said. “She really did her best out there in the moment and made us all proud as a family.

“We’re all super-proud of her, no matter the result, but it’s just that we want the best for her and her performance and that she comes home with no regrets.”

Park is the third Canadian to win a taekwondo medal at the Olympic Games following Dominique Bosshart’s bronze in 2000 and Karine Sergerie’s silver in 2008.

Kim defeated Iran’s Nahid Kiyanichandeh 2-0 for the gold medal. Bulgaria’s Alizadeh Kimia beat China’s Luo 2-1 in the other bronze-medal match.

By the time Park attended the medallists’ press conference Thursday night, it was hour 17 for her at the Grand Palais.

“It’s been a long day,” Park said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 8, 2024.