Building on her bronze medal end inside the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, Pauline Lopez hopes to check herself towards the arena’s fine within the 2019 World Taekwondo Championships Manchester.
The occasion will function as a part of her arrangements for the approaching Southeast Asian Games within the Philippines later this yr.
Joining Lopez as a part of the national taekwondo team are Veronica Garces, Baby Jessica Canabal, Rheza Aragon, Kurt Barbosa, Keno Anthony Mendoza, Dave Cea, and Dex Ian Chavez. They could be joined through coaches Carlos Padilla and Al Dela. Igor Mella, meanwhile, is the top of the delegation.
The organization will cross up against the high-quality jins representing greater than one hundred fifty countries in the 5-day competition, where they could earn factors to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
For Lopez, the aim constantly is to win a medal. Specifically, she wants to move deeper into the competition after making it into the quarterfinals two times earlier than.
After her stint in the Asian Games, Lopez competed inside the Grand Prix in Taipei and observed that up with a gold medal for Ateneo in the UAAP competitions. She has been training with the national crew three instances an afternoon and has filed for a leave of absence from school to her education’s cognizance.
“I’m very excited for the World Championships due to the fact I assume there may be an opportunity for me to medal,” stated Lopez. “I’ve competed there four times inside the beyond, and I made it to the quarterfinals in 2013 and 2017. However, I’m more confident. When I debuted there, I changed into competing towards opponents two times my age, and now I actually have extra enjoy.”
The discipline in her featherweight division is packed with gifted warring parties from the UK, Korea, and China, however she’s assured that her education has organized her well.
“We teach three instances a day for a complete five hours; on occasion, we do even more,” Lopez shared. “Training is constantly hard. Developing stamina, power, and conditioning is difficult, but we understand if we push ourselves, then the competitions might be easier; that’s when we’re going to have amusing.”
The 22-12 months-antique guess inside the -57 kilogram class was part of a select institution of ladies who got here domestic with medals from the final Asian Games this continues to be a riding force for Lopez.
“People might regularly say ‘you combat like a lady’ as a derogatory time period, but we’re right here to reveal them that we may want to fight,” she said. “If you look at the sports wherein we won medals consisting of taekwondo, weightlifting, and jiu-jitsu, there are sports wherein Filipino ladies aren’t anticipated to excel; however, we already proved that we could.”
Lopez hopes she’ll perform properly in the approaching event in Manchester, but her principal purpose is to win within the SEA Games, in which she is anticipated to seize a gold medal.
“Every match that I will be part of is in training for the SEA Games. I don’t thoughts the strain of the expectations because I’ve handled that every one my life,” Lopez stated. “Having a father as a train intended that I grew up understanding the way to address stress because he turned into continually on my ear, telling me what I did incorrectly and helping me parent out how I could improve. I recognize that so long as I do my work in training, then combat day goes to be amusing.”