CBC: Competing in 2020 Olympics dream come true for Winnipeg martial artist and her coach — who’s also her dad
Skylar Park, 20, qualified last month to compete in taekwondo at 2020 Tokyo Olympics
A local martial artist is one step closer to her childhood dream, and she can’t stop smiling about it.
Since childhood, Skylar Park has wanted to win a gold medal at the Olympics. Last month, Park found out she’ll be competing for Canada at the 2020 Tokyo Games this summer.
“I’m super excited,” she said. “This is something that I’ve dreamed of, and this has been my goal for I don’t even know how long…”
Park’s father and coach, Jae Park, says the whole thing still hasn’t sunk in.
“But to actually have my daughter achieve that, and to be her coach and her father, to go together to the Olympics and to try to represent Canada the best that we can — that’s pretty exciting,” he added…
But the next seven months will be key, says Jae Park, because he and Skylar can now focus on training, as opposed to worrying about qualifying for the Olympics.
And an intense seven months it will be — Park trains six to eight hours per day, six days a week.
That doesn’t include travelling to competitions, nor the time she needs to do online coursework for the kinesiology degree she’s pursuing at the University of Manitoba.
“There’s a lot of work, there’s a lot of sacrifices,” Park said. “But in the end, I really love what I’m doing and I have a goal that I want to achieve.
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