Nine taekwondo athletes named to Team Canada ahead of Santiago 2023 Pan Am Games
Competition is set to take place October 21 to October 24 in the Chilean capital.
Taekwondo Canada and the Canadian Olympic Committee announced their team to compete at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games on Monday, nominating nine athletes to compete in the Chilean capital in October.
In the kyorugi events — the discipline contested at the Olympics, which consists of two athletes sparring against each other — Canada will be represented by a group headlined by Tokyo 2020 Olympian Skylar Park.
Park, who won a silver medal in the women’s 57kg event at the 2019 Pan Am Games, will be joined on the team by her brothers, Braven and Tae-Ku, who will be representing Canada at the Pan Am Games for the first time. Skylar won gold at the 2022 Senior Pan Am Championships last year, while both Braven and Tae-Ku earned bronze medals in their respective events at that competition as well.
All three are coached by their father Jae Park in their hometown of Winnipeg.
“I think it’s always so special to represent Canada, especially at a multi-sport games,” Skylar said in a press conference following the announcement. “I’m super excited to go to Santiago, especially this time having my two brothers there with me. I think it’s going to be a special and different experience — the first time in Lima it was me and my dad, and this time we have two more coming, so I think it’ll be fun and it will allow me to experience the Games from their perspective and see them experience it for the first time.”
The Park trio has Chilean heritage on their mother’s side, so competing in Santiago will also be something of a homecoming.
“My mom is Chilean, that’s where she was born, so we’re super excited to get to compete as a family there,” Skylar added, mentioning that they are expecting extended family to watch them compete and visit the Chilean capital.
“I’m excited to be on my first Pan Am Games team,” added Tae-Ku. “I was in Lima watching Skylar compete, and I was also her training partner in Tokyo, so experiencing the environment of a major multi-sport games was really exciting, and now I’m super excited to have my opportunity to compete at one.”
Jae Park was also in the press conference, smiling from ear to ear as his three children spoke about what it will be like to compete alongside one another, and offered some thoughts on coaching them up to the elite level. He also hinted that the next goal for the family is to all go to the Olympics together.
“To do this as a family is just amazing,” he said. “For me as a father, to have all three of my kids represent Canada at the Pan Am Games is a dream come true, it’s been a goal but it’s a reality right now.
“We’ve worked hard for this, we’ve planned for this. We’re not quite where we are yet, but this is a big stepping stone for us to get to where we ultimately want to get as a family. I know it’s a cliché, they say it takes a village to raise a child, or in this case athletes at a world class level… it truly does.”
Also representing Canada in kyorugi events will be Marc-André Bergeron, Ashley Kraayeveld, Charlélie Mercier, and Angelique Orozco. Kraayeveld is competing in her third Pan Am Games, while Bergeron is competing in his second, after winning a men’s 80kg bronze medal at Toronto 2015. Mercier and Orozco are also debutants on this stage.
Two Canadians have also been nominated to represent Canada in the poomsae events — which feature a solo competitor performing a sequence of Taekwondo techniques linked together into a pattern of moves, often used for taekwondo training, and implying that the athlete is sparring an imaginary opponent.
Jinsu Ha and Valerie Ho will both be competing in their second Pan American Games, after both winning silver medals at Lima 2019 as part of Canada’s squad in the freestyle team event. Ha also won silver in the mixed pair event in 2019, alongside Michelle Lee, and a silver with Ho in mixed pairs at the 2023 Pan American Games Qualification Tournament, securing qualification for Santiago.
They will compete together in Santiago, where they will be considered medal contenders, with Taekwondo Canada’s high performance director Allan Wrigley describing them as “one of the best poomsae pairs in the continental union.”
“I’m super excited to represent Canada and hopefully get even better results than last time,” Ha said on Monday.
Since it became part of the Pan American Games program in 1987 for men and 1995 for women, Canada has won 31 medals in taekwondo, with five of them coming at Lima 2019.
Jinsu Ha and Michelle Lee won the aforementioned silver medal in the mixed poomsae pairs event, Canada took silver in the mixed poomsae freestyle teams event, and Skylar Park finished second in the women's 57 kg individual competition. Canada also won a pair of bronze medals — Abbas Assadian Jr. finished third in the men's poomsae individual event, and Hervan Nkogho finished third in the men's 68kg competition.
The hope is that Canada can match or exceed that number in Santiago as they push toward the Summer Olympics in Paris next year. Taekwondo competitions will take place on the first four days at Santiago 2023, October 21 to October 24, at the Centro de Deportes de Contacto, Estadio Nacional.
“We expect these Games to showcase the depth of talent Canada has in taekwondo,” Wrigley said in a press release on Monday.
Athletes qualified for the team based on their performances at the 2023 Pan American Games Qualification Tournament, which took place March 22-23 in Rio de Janeiro. That competition is seen as a good benchmark for testing yourself against the best athletes in the region, and served as the pathway for National Olympic Committees to earn spots for Santiago 2023.
All nominations are subject to approval by the Canadian Olympic Committee’s Team Selection Committee. That will happen after all National Sport Organizations make their nominations. From there, the chosen athletes will be officially named to Team Canada.
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