Taekwondo Training Towards First Gold Medal

Team Fiji Taekwondo hopes that the sport will win their first Gold medal at this year’s Pacific Games, in Honiara, Solomon Islands.

Team Section Manager Nimesh Narayan said the sport hoped to take five male and three female athletes to the games come November.

"The process has been long but we are confident in the athletes that we have chosen to represent the country, will make everyone proud."

Nimesh said they were trying to have more female participation in the sport and increased the team from two female athletes to three.

"These female athletes have proven themselves during trials and our fitness tests and are medal potentials at this year's games," he said.

Nimesh said the sport has yet to win a gold medal at the Pacific Games but were hopeful that it could change this year.

"As a National Federation our expectation from our athletes is gold or silver," he said.

Nimesh said one of the challenges for them was maintaining a high level of fitness going into the games.

"We have seen athletes from Tahiti and New Caledonia and their fitness levels are very impressive.

"We are upgrading our training program in the hopes that it will give us an advantage but we will also look at the welfare of our athletes because we don't want any injuries going into the games," he said.

The team will also depend on the experience of Australian based athlete, Richard Lin, who Nimesh says is one they are looking at to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic qualifiers later in the year.

To date, Team Fiji Taekwondo has won nine medals at the 2019 Pacific Games in Apia, Samoa which were all silver and bronze medals.

Taekwondo kicks of competitions on Tuesday 28th November, 2023 and will conclude their competitions on Friday 01st December, 2023.

Taekwondo at the Pacific Games has been contested since 1995 when it was introduced for the tenth edition at Papeete, Tahiti.

Women’s taekwondo was added in 1999 for the games held in Guam.

The men’s and women’s individual competitions have eight weight classes each in accordance with World Taekwondo classifications as of 2019.There are also teams events for men’s and women’s competition.

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