Taekwondo: Ticket to Athens reward for rough times

Verina Wihongi remembers the dream vividly.

Before she had reached double figures she had her sights on going to the Olympic Games.

Athletics was her thing back in those early formative years, 100m, 200m and 400m, plus the long jump. Top in her age group, contesting provincial championships in Waikato, her sights set on the very top.

Last week came confirmation she'd climbed her mountain, off to the Athens Games in August, but in the altogether different discipline of taekwondo.

Wihongi qualified as the first New Zealand woman to compete officially in the sport by winning the Asian Games welterweight gold medal in Bangkok in February. Susan Graham competed in Barcelona 12 years ago, winning a silver medal when it was a demonstration sport.

So how did the track and field turn into the hard, physically gruelling world of martial arts?

"My uncle started a club in Taneatua. It was a family affair.

"Most of us were into the sport and I went along for the social part of it. It was a fun thing to do."

Wihongi stepped onto a mat for the first time at 11, but it took three years before she started to get serious about it. She reckons it was around the time she was one step away from attaining her black belt.

"I got it when I was 15. That was a big step up, fighting very experienced ladies. I lost my first fight after I got the black belt."

Her coaches dropped the hint. She had the talent.

Wihongi singles out a Korean former world champion, Master Yun, who spent time coaching in New Zealand around that period - "he said, 'You've got potential. Stick to it"' - and Tauranga-based Master Kesi O'Neill as influential figures in those early years.

She went to Madison Square Garden - boxing's mecca in the years before the pro game turned into the tacky, tatty shambles it is now - for her first international event.

"The first time out of the country, going to America, and it was an open event, not a junior competition. Most of the women were 25 to 30.

"I lost to the world champion from Spain, but I thought with a bit more experience this could be me."

So she threw herself into the sport and is now unbeaten at the national championships (this year's edition of which begins in Clevedon tomorrow) in the past 10 years. In that time she has been beaten just three times in New Zealand.

Internationally, she has a bronze from the Asian Games in 1996 and the Korean festival five years later, and a silver at the Commonwealth Taekwondo Games in 1996.

As Wihongi missed last year's World Games, which are used for ranking purposes, she does not have an official world ranking. Her best guess? Around the 15-20 mark.

She missed her chance to go to the Sydney Olympics four years ago when injury counted her out of the selection trials. And now?

"It's a dream come true. The ultimate. I was speaking to Dad and he said that since I was eight I'd been talking about going to the Olympics.

"I thought then it might be athletics. He said, 'Never mind, at least you're going'," she laughed.

Her partner, Ngatai Hurkmans, is a first degree black belt. They train together and Wihongi insists she would not be packing her bags for Athens without his help.

"I had a rough time last year at the nationals and he said, 'Look Verina, this is your last chance. You're fighting like a white belt'."

It would be like telling an All Black he'd be lucky to make his club reserve side. But ...

"The truth hurt. He trained with me and pushed me every day.

"He is the reason, with his encouragement and his belief, that I've got this far."

The pair headed south a few years ago and worked in dairy herd management at Clydevale, near Balclutha, a world of pasture management, milk quality and day-to-day running of the dairy shed. And loved it.

Now, after a stint of fulltime training, they are heading back to start a new job in the same field before spending a month training at Sejong University in Korea. Back home for a short period then it's off to Athens.

The format there is straight knockout in a 16-strong field, so luck plays a part. She hopes to avoid the fighters from China, Korea and Norway. They are the guns. 10 out of 10, Wihongi reckons.

So it's a tough challenge, but one she's been preparing for, in a sense, much of her life.

After Athens, she'll have a look at the Beijing Games in 2008 when she'll be at the age many fighters are reaching their prime. But there's another goal.

"We have a club in Clydevale and we have students we believe we can get to fight internationally. I'd like to coach.

"I enjoy teaching what I've learned."