Winnipeg’s Skylar Park preps for Tokyo taekwondo with brother basement bouts

Jae Park gave up on having a home theatre in his basement years ago.

The lower level of his Winnipeg home is filled with treadmills, bikes, a rowing machine and taekwondo sparring mats.

“Our basement looks like a gym and it has for several years,” he said.

His daughter Skylar Park was one of the few Canadian athletes with an Olympic berth locked down when the Tokyo Games were postponed from 2020 to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 20-year-old taekwondoist has taken the current stay-at-home advisories in stride because her sparring partners are her brothers.

Including grandfather Deuk, mother Andrea, uncles, aunts and cousins, 16 members of the extended Park clan have their black belts.

“The only one who doesn’t have it is my grandma and she says she doesn’t need one,” Skylar said. “I’m the third generation of taekwondo martial artists in my family. It’s kind of been what we do.

“I don’t know when it started, but I always remember saying I wanted to win a gold medal for Canada at the Olympics.”

Deuk taught taekwondo to U.S. military in South Korea before emigrating to Canada in 1977 when Jae was eight years old.

Jae’s sport growing up was speedskating, but he practised taekwondo as well. He and Deuk opened Tae Ryong Park Taekwondo Academy in 1993.

“Taekwondo was something we were going to do as a life skills,” Jae said. “If we didn’t want to compete we didn’t have to, but the majority all did.”

Jae coaches Skylar, who claimed both a world championship bronze medal and Pan American Games silver in the 57-kilogram weight class last year.

There are few local female sparring partners in Skylar’s weight class and at her level.

She was fighting younger brothers Tae-Ku, 19, and Braven, 17, in the basement long before the pandemic.

“It does get pretty competitive,” Skylar said. “It was easier for me a few years ago when they were younger. I could kind of kick them around a little. Now, as they’ve gotten older and stronger, it’s been harder.

“It was definitely hard at the beginning because even just talking with my dad I asked ‘why are they beating me now? Why are they able to kick me around? Why can’t I muscle through them anymore?’ I kind of realized that’s the way it was going to be.

“It definitely has made me keep pushing harder just to keep up with them and to hold my own against them. It definitely has helped me inside the ring.”

Jae says his sons adapt their combat style to his daughter’s.

“Physically, they’re stronger, they’re faster,” he said. “It’s a bit of a trade-off, but 90 per cent it’s definitely a bonus, especially during this time when you’re confined to your home.”

When the Canadian Olympic Committee declared it would not send a team to the Tokyo Olympics if the Games went ahead this summer, Skylar endured a nervous two days wondering if her competitors would fight for gold without her.

Japan’s organizing committee and the International Olympic Committee agreed to a postponement, allowing Skylar to dream of gold again.

“We were preparing for it being in three months,” she said. “It was kind of hard to switch gears and take a breath and feel ‘OK, now we have more time.’

“But it’s still something I’m always thinking about and still dreaming of and excited for. This gives me a better opportunity to be ready and strive for the top of the podium in Tokyo.”

Winnipeg’s Dominique Brossart earned Canada’s first Olympic taekwondo medal with a bronze in 2000 when the sport made its Summer Games debut.

Karine Sergerie of Sainte-Catherine, Que., won a world title in 2007 and an Olympic silver medal in 2008.

“Those are athletes that I’ve definitely looked up to and another teammate that I have, Yvette Yong, I’ve looked up to her for a super-long time,” Skylar said. 

“I’ve been fortunate enough for the past three years to be teammates with her.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 28, 2020.

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Donna Spencer, The Canadian Press