Para-Taekwondo Athletes

French Para-taekwondo star Bopha Kong has four world and two European golds, and will push on to the Paris 2024 Games in search of his first Paralympic medal.

Vietnam-born Kong, who moved to France aged three, lost both hands aged 18 when a homemade bomb exploded while he was holding it.

Then a boxer, he switched to taekwondo as he hoped a martial arts philosophy would help him cope.

"When I was a child I watched a lot of films of Jackie Chan, Jean Claude Van Damme and of course Bruce Lee," he said in 2018. “Martial arts develops your self-esteem."

Kong's self-esteem received another boost in November 2022 when he was offered a sponsorship deal with beauty and cosmetics giant L'Oreal.

The agreement, which will cover Paris 2024, by which time Kong will be 43, is part of L'Oreal's "commitment to diversity", the company has claimed.

"I would like to thank the whole team," said Kong. "Alone we move forward, but together we go further."

Kong has won four world titles, most recently in 2019, but lost a bronze medal contest in the men's 61 kilograms class at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, where Para-taekwondo made its debut.

At the peak of his powers in 2018, he did not lose a fight and won six international tournaments.

Kong is also a two-time European champion and was a winner at the IWAS World Games.

At the start of his annus mirabilis of 2018 Kong had already won three world titles in the under-61 kilograms K43 division.

"My goal in 2018 is to win every tournament I compete in," he told World Taekwondo at the time. "And I want to compete in them all."

This is exactly what he did - the highlight being a 29-22 victory over rising Japanese talent Kenta Awatari to claim the Pan American Championships title.

Speaking before the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Kong commented: "The one that wins is the best of the best.

"This achievement is my dream - to be the best in the world."

During the pandemic, Kong was among a group of the world's leading Para-taekwondo athletes who demonstrated how they coped with the restrictive measures put in place due to cornoavirus.

His video was the first of World Taekwondo's online "Kicking It At Home" campaign and included footage of Kong at home.

As a Para taekwondo athlete, Mexico's Juan Diego Garcia Lopez has done it all at the age of 20 - but after winning one of the debut Paralympic titles at the Tokyo 2020 Games, he has already set his mind on a repeat performance in Paris next year.

It was a huge mark of the way Lopez has established himself within his field that he was chosen last November to be a flag bearer for his nation at the Opening Ceremony of the home World Taekwondo Championships in Guadalajara.

"I felt very happy to be part of the Opening Ceremony, to show my support for such an important event and for the whole Mexican team," Diego Garcia told World Taekwondo.

"It was very emotional when we came out with the flag, I had goosebumps as we

enjoyed the celebration of Mexican culture and everyone cheering our names."

Some 6,000 fans packed out the stadium to welcome all the fighters from across the world and sang the Mexican national anthem with great power.

"It was just an amazing feeling to listen to the Mexican national anthem here at home, but it’s also so nice to listen to the anthem on the other side of the world!" Lopez said.

"And I hope it will be playing again as I aim to win gold at Paris 2024."

The 2024 Paralympics will be shared globally on TV for the first time after the sport's highly successful debut at Tokyo 2020.

Without pandemic restrictions, Paris 2024 should be the first chance for the whole Lopez family to share the moment.

"I am fully focussed on qualifying directly for Paris 2024 and staying number one in the rankings," he said.

"I want to hear the anthem played again - this time with my family - and we will do everything possible to be together."

Family is a major motivation for Lopez who sees their support as central to his success, likewise the guidance of his coach Janet Alegria, and the two took the opportunity to study a few of the Olympic champions in Mexico.

Diego Garcia explained, "We have seen many top fighters here and there are some useful techniques that we will implement in our training to keep innovating.

"In 2023 we have the World Championships, the Grand Prix and the Para Pan American Games, so we must always seek out new ways and techniques to improve."

He stepped onto that path at the age of 14, and sees his success as a way to clear the way for others.

Juan Diego Garcia Lopez, left, won Paralympic gold as taekwondo debuted on the programme ©Getty Images

"This really motivates me and pushes me to do better in order to give a good example of how things should be done," he said.

"I feel really happy that there are people, and many kids, that are getting into Para taekwondo."

Significant progress has been made this year to fully incorporate Para taekwondo into the World Taekwondo calendar. Diego Garcia approves.

"This equality makes me very happy since the federation is being inclusive and Paralympic and Olympic athletes are being treated the same," he said.

The memories are still fresh of that night in the Makuhari Messe Hall at Tokyo 2020 when the 18-year-old celebrated extravagantly by spreading the Mexican flag across the mat where he had just defeated Iran's Mahdi Pourrahnama, 26-20 in the men's K44 under-75 kilograms final.

Lopez's victory took the Mexican Paralympic gold medal total to seven - one more than the country had achieved at London 2012.

An article on tecreview.tec.mx, written by Elizabeth Ruiz, details how he began in taekwondo at the age of five and joined the Mexican team at the National Center for the Development of Sports Talents and High Performance at the age of 14.

Two years later, he became senior world champion in Antalya, becoming the first Mexican to do so.

Later in 2019, he compounded his impact upon the sport when he took gold at the Lima 2019 Parapan American Games.

At the age of 17, he was the winner of the 2020 National Sports Award in the Paralympic category.

With Para-taekwondo due to make its debut at the postponed Tokyo 2020 Paralympics in 2021, the highest peak lay before the youngster.

He climbed it. Now he wants to wave the Mexican flag there once again…

At the age of 20, Guljonoy Naimova made Uzbekistan proud by earning gold at the inaugural Paralympic taekwondo competition at Tokyo 2020. She followed up with her first world title.

Naimova's achievement in the women's K44 over-58 kilograms division in Tokyo was all the greater for including victories against her two main rivals - Britain's 2017 world champion Amy Truesdale and Debora Menezes of Brazil.

The Uzbek athlete looked ready to succeed Truesdale as world champion at the 2019 World Championships in the Turkish city of Antalya but lost 7-3 in the final to Menezes, who thus claimed a first global Para-taekwondo title for her country.

Later that year, Naimova's ambition was thwarted once again as she had to settle for bronze at the Asian Para Open Taekwondo Championships in Amman, with Truesdale claiming gold.

But her semi-final meeting with the Briton in the heavyweight category at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics saw her progress with a startling 60-14 scoreline.

Awaiting her in the final on the last day of competition in the Makuhari Messe Hall B was Menezes, who had earned a similarly emphatic result in her semi-final, beating Ukraine's Yuliya Lypetska 55-10.

It took 40 seconds before either finalist landed a score, with Naimova first on the board after knocking Menezes to the floor with a kick to the body.

Menezes, 13 years older than her opponent, was then penalised twice as Naimova moved into a 4-0 lead at the end of the first round.

The Brazilian responded with a turning kick to the body to close the gap to 4-3, only for Naimova to land another blow to ensure a three-point cushion going into the final round.

Naimova managed to keep Menezes at bay in the first minute of the third round, before scoring with a kick to the body to move 8-3 ahead.

The Uzbek fighter was penalised and almost got caught with a kick to the head late on, but managed to hold on to win 8-4.

Five months after that Tokyo flourish, Naimova produced another in Istanbul as she earned her first world title after earning a narrow victory over her rival Truesdale in the final.

Truesdale had reached that match the hard way via a semi-final against the woman who had succeeded her as world champion in 2019, Menezes, and it was not until the final minute that Naimova found the way to take gold.

"I'm in shock," Naimova told World Para Taekwondo after her win. "The excitement is higher at the Worlds than at the Paralympic Games because of the pressure.

"No-one expected me to win at Tokyo 2020, but here I was the target."

Danish Para-taekwondo legend Lisa Gjessing, four times a world champion and three times a European champion, added the crowning achievement of an inaugural Paralympic title at Tokyo 2020 - at the age of 43.

Gjessing earned the women's K44 under-58 kilograms title at the Makuhari Messe Hall B in Chiba, with a 32-14 win in the final over Britain’s Beth Munro, who had earlier beaten China's 2019 world champion Li Yujie in the last four.

The Danish athlete reached the final with a thrilling 8-6 victory over Brazil's Silvana Fernandes.

Following her historic victory in what was the first Paralympic taekwondo competition, World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue met with Gjessing in Tokyo.

Choue congratulated her and discussed her plans for the future now she has won it all.

Gjessing lived up to her billing as one of Denmark's big medal hopes at the Paralympic Games, in which she took part as the world number one ranked player.

In March 2021, Danish broadcaster DR named Gjessing among seven athletes it tipped for a medal.

She had also been identified as "one to watch" by the International Paralympic Committee.

With that amount of pressure it was just as well that Gjessing had years of experience behind her at the top level.

"I am especially looking forward to feeling the atmosphere that the whole world unites around one thing, namely sports," she said before the Paralympic competition began.

Born in 1978, Gjessing is one of the older athletes on the circuit, but what she lacks in youth she more than makes up for in experience.

Gjessing was a member of Denmark's able-bodied taekwondo team and competed at the 2001 and 2003 World Championships, before being diagnosed in 2007 with chondrosarcoma, a form of bone cancer.

She underwent different treatments before her lower left arm was amputated in 2012.

Lisa Gjessing claimed Paralympic gold at Tokyo 2020 to complete her set of major medals ©Getty Images

At this crucial point in her life, Gjessing got in touch with her former coach, Bjarne Johansen, who spoke to her about Para-taekwondo.

She got back into training and was soon practicing alongside elite athletes at Johansen's training centre, in preparation for the World Para Taekwondo Championships in Lausanne in 2013.

She duly took the title in the under-58kg category, setting off on a long unbeaten run which only ended in 2019.

During that sequence of success she retained her world title in 2014, 2015 and 2017. The latter achievement - in an event staged at London 2012 Olympic venue the Copper Box Arena - was watched by her two daughters.

"I saw them in the stand during my first match and I started crying but thought 'no, you can't cry now!" said Gjessing to the IPC.

"When I went to the mat in the final I also felt like crying but told myself 'you can't be emotional now.'"

At the 2019 World Championships in Antalya, Turkey, however, she had to settle for bronze in an event where China's Li took gold and Serbia's Marija Micev silver - but she did break her arm in the quarter-finals.

In September 2019, Gjessing experienced another rare defeat in the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic test event at Makuhari Messe, although this was in the heavyweight class and not her own weight division.

She suffered a 27-10 loss to Britain's 2017 world champion Amy Truesdale, but she remained buoyant about her Tokyo capabilities.

"Taekwondo has become a very big gift to me," she told World Taekwondo. "It will be a great challenge for me to advance to the Tokyo Paralympics."

Gjessing's life has been marked by professional as well as sporting success. Her legal qualifications have earned her a position as a state prosecutor in Denmark.

Reflecting upon her illness, she told World Taekwondo in 2014: "It was a big shock."

Gjessing had given up taekwondo by then, partly due to family and educational commitments and partly due to failing to qualify for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

But while rehabilitating from her operation in 2012 she saw something that inspired her.

"I saw the Paralympics in London a few months after my amputation, and I thought, 'how can I feel sorry for myself, when they can do all this?' she recalled.

So she contacted Johansen. After an eight-year lay-off, Gjessing got back into training. "Johansen had an elite taekwondo centre and his guys were on a high level," she said. "But I found I could still kick."

Just a month-and-a-half later, she entered the able-bodied Danish National Championships and won in her class. "That felt really good," she admitted. She started intensive training for the 2013 World Para Taekwondo Championships in Lausanne.

She was off on a golden pathway towards a historic success in Tokyo…

Parfait Hakizimana is in the first-ever Refugee Paralympic Team ©UNHCR

Taekwondo Humanitarian Foundation (THF) coach Parfait Hakizimana has been included as a representative of his sport in the first-ever Refugee Paralympic Team.

Hakizimana, a Burundian refugee living in the Mahama Refugee Camp in Rwanda, was one of six athletes named in the team in different sports.

Hakizimana is set to compete in the men's under-61-kilogram division when taekwondo makes its Paralympic debut.

Until a few months ago, Hakizimana was based in the Mahama Refugee Camp, the biggest in Rwanda with more than 50,000 refugees.

More recently, he has been training in Rwandan capital Kigali.

At the camp, Hakizimana organised a taekwondo school and has trained in excess of 1,000 refugee children.

He has also prepared himself for elite competitions.

He competed in the 2017 African Open Championships in Kigali, where he won his first match before losing 18-12 to the top-seeded, three-time world champion Aythami Santana Santana of Spain in the under-61kg K44 quarter-finals.

As a refugee, it has been hard for Hakizimana to receive the necessary visas to travel to tournaments, making classification challenging, but World Taekwondo assured he would be reclassified before the August 1 deadline.

"We are thrilled with the announcement that Burundian refugee Parfait Hakizimana will be representing the Refugee Team at the Tokyo Paralympic Games this summer," said World Taekwondo President Chungwon Choue, who also chairs the THF Board.

"Few athletes have had to overcome the conditions of Mr. Hakizimana, who until recently lived, taught, and trained in Rwanda’s Mahama Refugee Camp."

While living in a camp for internally displaced people in 1996 because of the Burundian Civil War, he lost his mother and received an injury that left his left arm permanently debilitated when he was eight.

Fearing for his life, he later left the country permanently when unrest in Burundi flared up again in 2015.

Hakizimana has since been living at the Mahama Refugee Camp in Rwanda.

"Refugees don’t have a lot," he told the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees website, "but sport helps them forget their troubles."

The Refugee Paralympic Team represents more than 82 million people worldwide that have been forced to flee war, persecution, and human rights abuses - 12 million of whom live with a disability.

Parfait joins a team of six refugees for the Paralympics that also includes Ibrahim Al Hussein, a Syrian refugee living in Greece, who is a swimmer; Alia Issa, a Syrian refugee living in Greece and club thrower; Abbas Karimi, an Afghan refugee living in the United States, who is another swimmer; Anas Al Khalifa, a Syrian refugee living in Germany and canoeist; and Shahrad Nasajpour an Iranian refugee living in the United States who will compete in the discus.

The Refugee Paralympic Team will compete under the IPC flag and will be the first team to enter the National Stadium during the Opening Ceremony.

The first appearance of Para-taekwondo at the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Paralympics offered Ukraine's Vika Marchuk a priceless opportunity - something else to win.

In addition to her six world titles, Marchuk - who was abandoned in an ill-equipped orphanage in Kyiv after being born with Holt-Oram syndrome and only one arm - has won five European titles and many other international honours.

Ranked number one in the women's under-49 kilograms K43 division, Marchuk has not lost a fight since the introduction of the standings in 2016.

In 2019, she won all seven of her events, including adding a record-setting sixth world title and fifth European title.

She also set the record for most points scored and the biggest margin of victory, thanks to a 72-2 semi-final win at the 2019 European Championships.

Marchuk became the first athlete to receive the prestigious Merited Master of Sport in Para Taekwondo.

As a world champion, she was already a recipient of the Master of Sport designation, the system's second-highest award.

The Merited Master of Sport - the system's most prestigious award - is rarely bestowed and only on international champions that have also made valuable contributions to the sport.

Marchuk is the first athlete in any post-Soviet country to receive the prize in Para-taekwondo.

Such commendation is a far cry from the reaction of the Ukrainian authorities after she had won her first world title in Aruba after her coach, Yuliya Volkova, raised the money for her to take part just nine months after she had taken up the sport.

Two months before the Championships Marchuk, who had already required a heart operation, needed surgery on her shoulder.

But when she got to Aruba she was an unstoppable force, whispering to herself during the Opening Ceremony: "I must win, I must win…"

She did so. "I had never seen Vika looking joyful," Volkova said. "Now, at last, I did. Sport - in this case, taekwondo - truly has the power to realise dreams and to change lives."

But when they returned home they were told that it was "a random gold medal" and no financial support was offered by the Sports Ministry. In the meantime, Marchuk required more treatment for her shoulder.

Eight years on, Marchuk is in a far happier place.

News of her award was followed by a promise from her local City Government to provide her with her own apartment.

But for all her successes, victory in Tokyo is far from being guaranteed.

Marchuk will be seeded third at the Paralympic Games, where K43 and K44 athletes are competing in the same class.

To earn that career-topping gold she will need to get by Mongolia's K44 world champion Enkhtuya Khurelbaatar and Turkey's second-seeded Meryem Betul Cavdar.

When Sheila Radziewicz was born without arms or kneecaps, doctors said it was doubtful whether she would live or not and she would certainly never walk. Now with an extraordinary amount of determination and courage, the 32-year-old American is not only walking, she's about to get her black belt in taekwondo.

Diagnosed at birth with thrombocytopenia-absent radius, known as TAR syndrome, the Massachusetts-born Radziewicz learned from an early age that she had to be independent if she was going to have the quality of life she craved.

Wearing thigh-high leg braces - similar to those worn by Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump - she got through school, left home at 19 and four years later got her driver's license in a specially built car that she drives with her feet.

"I grew up with the phrase, 'The impossible only takes a little longer,'" she told her local newspaper, Salem News.

Appropriately, that was the title of the book she released in November 2014.

"'The Impossible Only Takes a Little Longer: One Women's Story of Determination', is more than just a book," said the publishers in a press release. "It is a message about ability. It is one example about how living with a disability can be amazing despite society's challenges. One must purchase this book and experience her undaunted way of achieving so much despite the odds and obstacles society has put before her."

Sheila Radziewicz's book The Impossible Only Takes a Little Longer: One Woman’s Story of Determination details how she overcame the odds thanks, partly, to taekwondo
©Sheila Radziewicz

Having discovered taekwondo three years ago, Radziewicz said the sport has helped her deal with the daily stresses of life. "It's nice to have an outlet where you can just kind of empty your mind," she said, adding that the prospect of achieving the much coveted black belt status next month was "really exciting."

Working as a local advocate coordinator for Healing Abuse Working for Change, a charity that helps victims of domestic abuse, Radziewicz never misses training at Bruce McCorry's Martial Arts school. "She is a very motivating person for myself," said the owner, while her instructor Sandra LaRosa added: "She never feels sorry for herself."

It just goes to show that anyone can be happy, successful and lead a fulfilling life. Good luck to Sheila Radziewicz. We salute you.

For more information about Sheila Radziewicz click here.

A Ghanaian athlete has an inspirational message for disabled people internationally.

"To all my disabled friends all over the world, taekwondo is beautiful, taekwondo is sweet," said Sharon Akewi, 30." If you are a disabled person like me, don't sit in your room, don't lock the door, come into taekwondo, you will have a great opportunity."

Akewi lost two fingers of his right hand at the age of 25, but that did not keep him from the sport he has loved since the age of 12.

"My master came to visit me in the hospital and motivated me to never give up, to keep practicing." After one year of rehabilitation, he did exactly that. "If you love it, no predicament is going to make you stop what you love to do," he added.

Now a taekwondo coach himself, Akewi has been helping friend John Bodu, 25. Bodu lost his right arm in an accident at age 14, but took up disabled football and cycling before being introduced to taekwondo by Akewi. The two attended their first Para-taekwondo Championships in Moscow 2014 and hope it will be the start of something special.

"I know the sky will not be the limit," said Bodu, who has medaled for Ghana in other Para-sports. "I want to do the same for taekwondo, I want to be the world's best!"

They have their sights high, which they hope to win not just for Ghana, but for "Africa as a whole." They also have aspirational sporting benchmarks, which they hope will elevate their chosen game into the big leagues.

"Just like you have world-class players - [Lionel] Messi or [Cristiano] Ronaldo in football, Ghanaian Athlete Urges Disabled: [Manny] Pacquiao or [Floyd] Mayweather in boxing - we hope taekwondo is going to be lifted up to that level," said Akewi. "When you hear about world champions, you will hear about Sharon Akewi and John Bodu. You make the name, you make the fame, you make the money."

Ghanian Para-taekwondo player Sharon Akewi dreams of being his sport's version of Barcelona and Argentinian football superstar Lionel Messi ©Getty Images

Even so, however hard they fight on the mats, the two know they face another struggle back home - the struggle against prejudice. "In Ghana, it is not easy to have this hand and say you want to train someone," said Akewi.

Bodu added: "In Ghana it is very hard to do disabled sports. They normally take care of able-bodied sports, but not disabled sports."

And they both note a lack of financial support - they are "financially disabled" as Akewi puts it - and suffer from a dearth of training equipment, such as uniforms and protective gear. Both made pleas for philanthropists to step in an assist the sport in their country and across the African continent. "Disabled sports is like able-bodied sports," said Bodu.

In the universe of martial arts and combat sports - from boxing to judo, from wrestling to capoeira, from fencing to kendo - one system stands out for its heavy kick quotient: taekwondo.

Although the sport's Korean name translates to "the way of foot and fist," it has always focused most heavily on leg techniques. While taekwondo cannot compete with boxing in terms of punching or fencing in terms of sword-fighting, when it comes to kicking, taekwondo reigns supreme.

This emphasis is what drew Japan's Hiroki Sugita, 28, to taekwondo after a devastating accident.

"When I was 20 years old, I had a car accident: I was sitting next to the driver, a friend of mine," he recalls. The car crashed, leaving him with a serious disability.

Japan boasts a wealth of domestic martial arts and combat sports, including judo, karate and kendo. But judo requires a strong hand grip and kendo needs two hands to hold the bamboo sword. For a young man with Sugita's disability, a striking style was most appropriate. The choice came down to karate or its close cousin, taekwondo.

"Karate is more forceful, taekwondo is more agile," he said. "And my left arm is very problematic, so I wanted to find a sport that uses only the legs."

In the run-up to the 5th WTF World Para-taekwondo Championships in Moscow, Sugita did physical and tactical training, but his core workouts were focused on taekwondo's signature footwork. "My main training has been stretching and the basic kicks," he said.

Given the disabilities affecting most of its contestants, Para-taekwondo permits punches to the body, but will not award points for them, further strengthening its kick-centricity.

This emphasis is in line with Para- taekwondo's current stage of development and the athletes it attracts, said a senior official with the sport's world governing body.

"It is important that we broaden our base, we have to be inclusive," said Jacobus Engelbrecht, who heads the World Taekwondo Federation's Para-Taekwondo Committee. "It is about making sure opportunities are created."

But, Engelbrecht claimed it is also important to focus on the sport's core strengths in the here and now. "Let us develop one area properly," he said. "At the moment it is mainly for upper body amputees and limb deficiencies."

In other words, Taekwondo's famed kicks are, right now, being as heavily emphasised in the Para-sport as they are in the regular sport.

This, however, is not to say that taekwondo is simply about fast and forceful kicking; like all sports, it is equally about fair and friendly competition.

Sugita is currently a rarity among Para-athletes in his country. "In Japan, there are not that many Para-sparring athletes, though there are some Japanese Para-athletes who choose taekwondo for its foot-focused fighting style are some poomsae athletes," he said; "I want to exchange and meet and make friends. I want more interactions."

Watching Haşim Celik fight, one is reminded of a comment by Russian Taekwondo Federation President Anatoly Terekhov: "You would not realise he is disabled."

In his K44 under 75 kg match against Boris Chepurenkov at the 5th WTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships in Moscow in 2014, the 23-year-old from Turkey adopted a wide stance, weight forward, stalking his opponent. Switching feet fluently, he controlled the distance, firing fluid round kicks off both forward and back legs, varied with a front pushing kick.

Although he was unable to fully deploy the point-winning jumping back spinning kick he had landed three times in his first match against Russian Makhdi Amarov - Chepurenkov jammed the kicks - Celik's rear-leg round kick, fired from the clinch-break, made an audible "thwack" as it knifed in under Chepurenkov's guard.

Final result: 5-1. That victory, following his earlier win, put Celik comfortably through to the quarter-finals.

Off the mats, Celik analyzed the match. "My coach ordered me to control the fight and to watch the opponent - to see his power, his speed, his empty spot," he explained. "After that, he ordered me to fire my techniques into the open spot. It got good results."

But things did not do either Celik or his coach's way in his semi-final match against Russia's Magomedzagir Isaldibirov.

Although Celik dropped his opponent twice, the hits were not registered on the PSS and the pacey Isaldibirov returned fire with a flurry of kicks, moving ahead in the scoring.

With the clock ticking, Celik unleashed a full arsenal of high-scoring techniques - jump spinning round kicks and jump spinning back kicks - keeping his opponent under pressure right up to the bell. But the final score was still 5-2 to the home-crowd favourite - who eventually took silver. That left Celik with a deserved bronze in one of the Championships' most competitive categories.

Turkey's Haşim Çelik was disappointed with his bronze medal at the 5th WTF World Para-Taekwondo Championships in Moscow but has vowed to bounce back stronger ©Facebook

Looking downcast in the stands after his loss, Celik managed to summon up a smile and a shrug for those giving their condolences. "Maybe next time," he said.

Soft spoken and with a thoughtful demeanor, Celik, who was born with missing fingers and toes, was always shy: "When I was a child, I was so embarrassed because of my disability."

His father forced him socialise with other children and registered him on a football team, but the young Celik used to hide his hands behind his back - which did little for his play. His father, seeing this, offered him a financial reward for every goal he scored. The tactic worked, and his football improved.

Celik, currently based in Germany, started taekwondo after watching one of the sport's superstars, Servet Tazegül, at the Bavarian Championships in 2006. "I saw Servet doing all these tremendous kicks, these fancy looking techniques, I asked him how he did them and he told me to come and learn too," Celik recalls. "So I did."

The two train in the same club and became very close - to the point where Celik was the witness at Tazegul's wedding. (Tazegul was on his honeymoon during the Championships in Moscow, but still messaged Celik to wish him luck. "Even on his honeymoon, Servet is thinking about taekwondo!" Celik said.)

Celik had a formidable talent for the sport. This, married with a daily, after-school training programme, won him silver at the European Championships in Bucharest in 2013 and a gold at the World Para-Taekwondo Championships in Lausanne in the same year, making him one of sport's top players.

"His big advantage is he can attack with both his front and his back leg and his distancing is very good," said Turkish Coach Yilmaz Polat. "And he always listens to my orders during matches."

Coaching may be one of the reasons for Celik's pre-match calm. While he admits that he is nervous before matches - he does deep breathing exercises on match-day mornings - he claims he does not focus on who his upcoming opponents are, letting his coach take care of that. During events, he manages stress by talking with his team mates about anything but taekwondo.

Haşim Çelik (left) was inspired to take up taekwondo after watching London 2012 Olympic gold medallist Servet Tazegül (right) in action ©Facebook

Aside from taekwondo, Celik's goal is to finish university - he is a student at Germany's Friedrich Alexander University - and become a lawyer or a judge. But he also hopes his chosen sport will enter the Paralympics.

If it does, he could become a rich man.

"Olympic sports are very well supported by the Turkish Government," said fellow Turk and World Taekwondo Federation auditor Ali Sagirkaya, who estimates that Tazegül was awarded around $1 million for his Olympic gold medal at London 2012. But currently, taekwondo is not in the Paralympics, meaning that there is little cash available in the sport - even in a country as taekwondo-crazy as Turkey.

However, for Celik, none of this is important. "I don't do this for the money, I am in love with this sport," he said. "If I raise the Turkish flag over the arena, that is my reward; it is worth millions to me."