Winnipegger wins Taekwondo gold for Canada at Grand Prix

It’s the moment Winnipegger Skylar Park has been working so hard for. The 24-year-old won a gold medal at the Taiyuan World Taekwondo Grand Prix in China, on Tuesday. Park not only won gold but earned key points in the world rankings, as she vies to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics. Park is currently ranked fourth.

“It’s probably the biggest win of my career and a win that I have been chasing for a really long time,” said Park.

Park has been competing on the Grand Prix circuit since 2017, winning five bronze and a silver, but now she can add a gold medal to her collection – giving her confidence moving forward.

“I’m just going to continue to build on that. It’s a lot of ranking points as well. It’s 60 points towards my Olympic rankings. So, I am hoping to directly qualify for Paris at the end of this year.”

There’s not a lot of time to enjoy this win, as she and her family are heading down to Santiago, Chile on Sunday for the 2023 Pan American Games.

She will be joined by her brothers Tae-ku and Braven Park, who are also competing in the games. 

“We’ll be competing from the 21st to the 24th. We’re in the Kyorugi style of taekwondo which is the fighting. There is also one other discipline of taekwondo called Poomsae which is more of the patterns and technique part of it,” said Tae-ku Park.

The Pan Am Games will be the first multi-sport event for the brothers

“Just being able to, as a family, keep it rolling and hopefully bring all that motivation and all that she’s learned and all that she’s grown into the next competition, I think it will all help us and bring us all together and hopefully we will be able to do it,” said Braven Park.

Jae Park is not only the father to Skylar, Tae-ku, and Braven, but he is also their Head Coach. He says there is a lot of work that goes into these major competitions.

“It’s a full-time job, just as anyone would go to work. It’s the same thing for them. They bring work home with them, just because they live with Mom and Dad who are their coaches and manager, so I think it is non-stop, but I think that’s all they know since they were young,” explained Jae Park.

For Skylar, it’s all about getting that gold medal at the Olympics.

“It’ll mean everything. That’s been the goal since the very beginning,” she explained. “Since I was little telling my dad that I wanted to win a gold medal for Canada has been my thing and it is something I have been dreaming about and working towards every single day.”