"GASOLINE FOR LIFE:" DANISH CHAMPION LISA GJESSING RETAINS TITLE IN TRAIL-BY-FIRE FINALE

MOSCOW, Russia (22 June, 2014) – Lisa Gjessing lost an arm to cancer in 2012, but now reckons she is happier than she was prior to the amputation. How so? Well…being a world para-taekwondo champion has something to do with it.

The 35-year old Dane boasts the svelte physique of an elite-level athlete and the sculpted Nordic facial features that modelling agencies would kill for. She is successful both professionally – she is a state prosecutor – and personally – she is married with two children, aged five and eight.

But cancer is no respecter of looks or position: In 2009, Gjessing was diagnosed with the disease.

“It was a big shock,” she said. Gjessing underwent various treatments and in 2012, her lower left arm was amputated. The trauma forced some introspection, and she decided to return to an old love.

Before her illness, Gjessing had practiced taekwondo, competing at the 2001 and 2003 world championships. But in 2004, she had given up the practice, partly due to familial and educational commitments, and partly due to failing the 2004 Olympic qualifications. Fast forward to 2012, and while she was in rehab, she saw something that inspired.

“I saw the Paralympics in London a few months after my amputation, and I thought, ‘How can I feel sorry for myself, when they can do all this?’” she recalled. 

She contacted her former coach Bjarne Johansen - with whom she had remained in contact – and the two were excited to discover that para-taekwondo existed. After an eight-year layoff, Gjessing got back into training. “Johansen had an elite taekwondo center and his guys were on a high level,” she said. “But I found I could still kick.”

Just a month and a half later, she entered the (able-bodied) European Championships and won in her class. “That felt really good,” she recalled, and started intensive training for the World Para-Taekwondo Championships in 2013.

In Lausanne, she took home the gold. 

That win, plus her previous experience in able-bodied taekwondo, gives her a unique vantage point from which to judge the two formats.

Para-taekwondo has removed the crowd-pleasing head kicks which tend to be lateral; this makes it more linear, with more back-and-forth movement, she said. She was also surprised that (at least in the women’s categories) there was as wide a pool of opponents as in able-bodied. She will stick with the para-format.

“From now on, I’m only doing para-taekwondo, I am not going back to able-bodied,” she said. “With work and kids, I don’t want to fight with head contact.”

This year in Moscow, having trained six days a week for months in the run-up she was in tigerish condition, fully prepared to defend her title.

Her first two matches were a cruise. Against relatively inexperienced opposition, she won 16-0 and 12-0; both fights were – prudently - stopped by the judges. The situation presented Gjessing with an issue. “I felt I should have been more gentle with them, I want them to be up and coming as I want more competitors!” she said. “It is a dilemma.”

There would be no such dilemma in the final. Facing Azerbaijan’s Mammedova Aynur, she underwent a trial-by-fire, the toughest fight of her para-taekwondo career.

Plunged into near-mortal combat, Gjessing was unable to crack Aynur’s water-tight guard. “She was really good, she covered up and did her thing,” said Gjessing, who, for the first two rounds, was behind on points. What she did not realize, as her opponent came out for the final round, was how exhausted she was. “I was really tired, and my concentration slipped,” said Aynur. “The last 30 seconds decided the match.”

Needing a high-risk, high-scoring technique, Gjessing unleashed a spinning back kick. It landed and put her ahead.  When the smoke cleared, she was holding gold in the women’s -58 g, K44 class, with a score of 5-3.

Aynur’s dismay was evident when she stood on the silver rostrum: Tears streamed down her face. Yet the two are not to-the-death rivals. “We only fight on the mats; off them, we are good friends,” said Aynur. But she warns, “In October, at the European Championships, I’ll beat her!”

Meanwhile Gjessing is looking forward to reuniting with her husband and children.

“My family is very supportive, but I can’t do this all year round,” she said. “I have not followed the kids to school since May and I hardly pick them up, so now, I am ready for some family time.”

In the aftermath of cancer, the combination of para-taekwondo and victory has proven effective life therapy.

“I love doing taekwondo, I love the sport, I love the kicking, I love the people,” she mused. “Doing something you like and winning a world championship fills a center in your brain: I think I am happier than before.”

That is confirmed by her colleagues. “She is such a joy to be with,” said Danish team head and president of the Danish Taekwondo Federation, Ejnar Skovgaard Mikkelson. “There is such a joy in her, and in this arena, too; you don’t feel that so much in ordinary taekwondo.”

Johansen puts it succinctly: para-taekwondo, he says, is “gasoline for life.”

And Gjessing plans to motor on, because she is enthused by para-taekwondo’s future possibilities.

“I hope that this goes through to the Paralympics, that is the big dream,” she said. “If it is in Tokyo in 2020, I can promise you: I’ll be ready!”

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OPENING CEREMONY PARA-TAEKWONDO DEMONSTRATION MARKS TRIUMPHANT END OF ODYSSEY FOR MOROCCANS

MOSCOW, Russia (21 June, 2014) – The opening ceremony of the 5thWTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships featured a range of acts and entertainments, but the event that bought the house down was a para-taekwondo demonstration by a six-man team from Morocco.

However, their show was not the only wonder. Due to the prejudices facing para-athletes, many attendees at the championships faced considerable struggles to participate - butperhaps none more so than the boys from Morocco.

For years, this cheerful, extrovert team – who, on the evening before the championships, raised laughs with their noisy appreciation of a belly dancer performing in the restaurant of their Moscow hotel – found their efforts to attend a para-taekwondo championship thwarted by misfortune, miscommunication and plain old lack of cash.

“We did not know about the (first para-taekwondo championships, which took place right after the world championships) in Azerbaijan in 2009,” said Abdennour El-Faydeni, who is competing in kyorugi as well as demonstrating. “Morocco took a team of 24 able-bodied athletes, but not even one or two disabled people.”

In 2010 problems familiar to many para-athletes – lack of funds and federation issues - prevented the Moroccans from attending that year’s championship in St. Petersburg, Russia. For the 2012 championships in Santa Cruz, Aruba, the team went so far as to obtain travel visas, but were eventually stymied for lack of cash. And for the 2013 championships in Lausanne, Switzerland, they did not have time to get a team together due to communications error.

A key barrier to accessing funds has been lack of Olympic recognition.

“We tried to talk to the federation of sports in Morocco, but they said because taekwondo is not in the Paralympics it does not exist!’” Abdennour recalled. “I said, ‘It exists! It is your fault that you don’t know about it!’”

Finally in 2014, their luck changed.

They were invited to the neighboring country of Tunisia – to which they could afford the relatively cheap air fares - where they conducted a show that proved a hit. Another invitation, to demonstrate at the African Championships, brought them to the attention of WTF President Chungwon Choue.

Choue arranged funds for the demonstration team’s flight and accommodation in Moscow, and the Russian organizing committee donated free transport. “This is our best year!” enthused team member Faycal Lahsaini.

Given the trials and tribulations they have undergone, it is hardly surprising that the team don’t like to use the common terms “disabled” or “impaired” to describe themselves. Their preferred nomenclature is evident in the name of their organization they founded in 2012: the Association of Challenge and Persistence for Persons with Special Abilities.

“We are ambassadors for all people of special abilities,” said team member Adil Maddoud.

 “We want to show their abilities to all people, not just to people with special abilities,” added Coach Hichan El-Allassi. “And we want to show them to all persons – like mothers and fathers – to show that they do not have to keep them in their houses, they should show them to the world.”

That mission is very much in line with the thinking of the father of Moroccan para-taekwondo, Aziz Smaili.

“I saw many disabled people in the streets, and I tried to find a way to make them happy, to include them in society,” said Smaili, a taekwondo coach.

After including para-athletes in taekwondo training programs in the late 1990s, he founded the demonstration team in 1998. “Through shows, we can show the abilities of these people to the public,” Smaili, who has also authored books on poomse and kyorugi for para-athletes, said.

But is there any way to change the perception toward para-taekwondo athletes in Morocco?

“It was many years before our dreams to be included in a para-taekwondo championship came true,” said Abdennour. “So now, our hope is to include Para-taekwondo in Tokyo in the 2020 Paralympics. That will be a big message.”

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NEOPHYTE TAEKWONDO PARA-ATHLETES FROM LESOTHO FACE STERN CHALLENGE

MOSCOW, Russia (20 June, 2014) – Preparing to compete in a world championship is intimidating for any athlete. But just imagine how more intimidating it must be if you have never travelled abroad before in your life – and if you only have three months training in the sport in question.

This is the challenge facing Lydia Masole Pitso, 18, and  Phoofolo Mokhethi, 16, who both hail from the southern African country of Lesotho, as they prepare for the 5th WTF World Para-

Taekwondo Championships in Moscow, Russia.

The two teens both suffer from dual upper limb disabilities, and both attend the country’s Saint Angelo’s School. It is there that they were scouted by coach John Moorasama Nkesi, who told them about what taekwondo means.

“ I told them they should not be ashamed of themselves, that they are training to defend themselves, and that they should have a high standard of discipline,” Nkesi said. “If you are equipped with this skill, you can beat all the challenges in the world.”

The two were won over. “I was so happy to be involved in taekwondo, I did not think that one day I would be among it,” said Mokhethi. “It is so glamorous!” added Pitso, who also plays ladies’ football. “It’s the game I like the most.”

The athletes, whose air tickets to Moscow were sponsored by the World Taekwondo Federation, were on their first trip abroad. Despite their inexperience, their coach is adamant that they are both in with a chance of taking home medals.

“They started in the second week of April,” he said. “You won’t believe them now!

That is no bluster. The view is backed up by a taekwondo athlete with two decades of experience, who observed the two thwacking away at kick pads as they trained in preparation for the championship - and were astonished at how short their training histories were.

In the future, Mokhethi hopes to become a taekwondo coach, while Pitso harbours ambitions of being a soldier. But first they face a trial by fire: Their first international championship. Given their relative inexperience, are they worried?

“I am concerned,” Mokhethi admits. Pitso, however, is quietly determined to make her mark.

“Most people say, ‘You should not be able to play,’” she said firmly. “But we try to do our best to do all the same that others can do.”

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HIGH-ALTITUDE ATHLETE FROM NEPAL HAS LOFTY HOPES

MOSCOW, Russia (20 June, 2014) - He had it all: A steady job, a life in a foreign country and a sporting hobby – taekwondo. Then it all fell apart.

"I injured my hand, I lost two fingers in an industrial accident," said Yadav Kunwar, 41, from Nepal, recalling the incident that changed his life while working in South Korea. "When I had that accident, I felt like I lost my life."

Kunwar, a 25-year taekwondo veteran now preparing to compete in the 5th WTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships in Moscow, Russia, recalls how devastating the blow was: For two years, nursing his mutilated hand, he did not practice.

Then – hope.

"I heard about para-taekwondo," said the trim, long-haired athlete. "When I heard about it, I hoped for a new life in taekwondo."

Indeed, the kick-centric sport is particularly suited for those suffering from upper limb injuries. he said. "Taekwondo plays with the foot, and uses the hand to protect," he said. "I feel like I am not 100 percent, but that is no problem."

Remotivated, Kunwar dived back into his beloved sport and in 2013 grabbed a bronze in the sparring category at the 4th WTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships held in Lausanne, Switzerland in 2013. That result made him one of Nepal's highest profile sporting heroes.

Back home in Nepal, taekwondo is well developed. It is the nation's most popular sport, and Kunwar himself is widely featured in national media. Now he is giving back to the sport as a coach, teaching the disabled around the country. In doing so, he hopes that he will no longer be a force of one.

"I am the only Nepalese athlete here," he said of the Nepalese contingent in Moscow. "Next time, there will be more."

Taekwondo, which requires neither equipment nor stadium, is well suited to Nepal, he reckons. "For taekwondo you don't need a cricket pitch, you can play it in a small room," he said. "It is very easy to play."

And Nepal's country's soaring landscapes might just be the perfect breeding ground for taekwondo athletes, Kunwar reckons. "We are lightweight, high-altitude people," he said; his countrymen's physical combination of agility and leg strength is appropriate for the high-kicking contact sport.

As he gears up for the weekend Moscow championship, he has high hopes.

"I want to get a gold here in Russia," he said. He acknowledges, however, that he is facing strong competition – particularly from the Azerbaijani, Russian and Turkish teams. But he is not daunted, and hopes to improve on his score in Lausanne. Subsequently, he hopes there may be an even bigger event.

"I want to get gold at the Paralympics," he said. "I want to be a medalist."

The International Paralympic Committee will be voting on taekwondo's inclusion in the Paralympic program in October this year or in the first quarter of next year at the latest.

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GHANAIAN ATHLETE URGES DISABLED: "DON’T SIT IN YOUR ROOM, DON’T LOCK THE DOOR"

MOSCOW, Russia (20 June, 2014) –  A Ghanaian athlete preparing for the upcoming 5th WTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships here in Moscow has an inspirational message for disabled people internationally.

“To all my disabled friends all over the world, taekwondo is beautiful, taekwondo is sweet,” said Sharon Akewi, 30.” If you are a disabled person like me, don’t sit in your room, don’t lock the door, come into taekwondo, you will have a great opportunity.”

He should know. Akewi lost two fingers of his right hand at the age of 25, but that did not keep him from the sport he has loved since the age of 12. 

“My master came to visit me in the hospital and motivated me to never give up, to keep practicing.” After one year of rehab, he did exactly that. “If you love it, no predicament is going to make you stop what you love to do,” he added.

Now a taekwondo coach himself, Akewi was in Moscow with buddy John Bodu, 25. Bodu lost his right arm in an accident at age 14, but took up disabled football and para-cycling before being introduced to taekwondo by Akewi. The two are both attending their first para-taekwondo championship – and both are confident.

“I know the sky will not be the limit,” said Bodu, who has medaled for Ghana in other para sports. “I want to do the same for taekwondo, I want to be the world’s best!”

They have their sights set on gold, which they hope to win not just for Ghana, but for “Africa as a whole.” They also have aspirational sporting benchmarks, which they hope will elevate their chosen game into the big leagues.

“Just like you have world-class players – Messi or Ronaldo in football, Pacquiao or Mayweather in boxing– we hope taekwondo is going to be lifted up to that level,” said Akewi. “When you hear about world champions, you will hear about Sharon Akewi and John Bodu! You make the name, you make the fame, you make the money.”

Even so, however hard they fight on the mats, the two know they face another struggle back home – the struggle against prejudice.

“In Ghana, it is not easy to have this hand and say you want to train someone,” said Akewi. “In Ghana it is very hard to do disabled sports,” added Bodu. “They normally take care of able-bodied sports, but not disabled sports.”

And they both note a lack of financial support – they are “financially disabled” as Akewi puts it – and suffer from a dearth of training equipment such as uniforms and protective gear. Both made pleas for philanthropists to step in an assist the sport in their country and across the African continent.

Given this, they both hope for a strong public reception when the games begin on Saturday.

“Disabled sports is like able-bodied sports,” said Bodu, adding that he hopes for strong crowd support, “… to boost our morale so we can do something for the nation.“

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