Team GB’s Caden Cunningham has shared his journey progressing as a youngster through the sport of taekwondo. Daniel Wales and Charles Hague-Jones asked the questions.
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00:00 Taekwondo is a sport that approximately 70 million people practice worldwide and is one
00:08 of the most well-known martial arts.
00:11 It is also a recognised sport at the Olympic Games.
00:16 One hopeful for Parrish this summer is Caden Cunningham from Yorkshire.
00:20 We sat down with him to discuss how he became involved in Taekwondo and the journey it has
00:25 taken him on so far.
00:27 I started when I was six and I just did it with a friend back home, back in Huddersfield.
00:34 It was part of an after-school club we had going on.
00:39 And then yeah, it just grew.
00:40 I grew a love for it and it just sort of snowballed into where I am today.
00:44 You know, it's one of those sports where you can have a team in preparation for it, but
00:50 come to the big moments, you are out there, you know, on your own.
00:53 It's a solo sport.
00:54 So that must take a lot of mental strength and especially the higher you go in the sport
00:59 as well, it must be quite mentally challenging at times.
01:02 How do you find that?
01:03 It's all part of the challenge.
01:07 It's been a thing since you start, when you start Taekwondo, you start competing.
01:12 Yeah, you're right.
01:13 You are training with people.
01:14 You've always got someone you train with or teach you how to do with these things.
01:18 But you get into a ring and someone's trying to kick your face off.
01:21 So that sort of goes out the window for like every now and then.
01:26 For those who don't know, how does Taekwondo differentiate from other martial arts like
01:30 Kung Fu, Karate, for example?
01:33 Yeah, well, for people who don't know, they all assume it's the same as Karate.
01:37 That's the question a lot of Taekwondo athletes get.
01:40 But there's electronics involved.
01:42 There's electronic scoring system for the body and the head that everyone will see at
01:47 Paris Olympics.
01:48 And yeah, there's some slight tweaks in the rules.
01:52 You can't sweep like Karate and that sort of stuff.
01:54 You essentially kick into the body and head as hard as you can.
01:57 Can knock someone out if you can.
02:00 And you can punch to the body as hard as you want.
02:03 Karate, you pull your contact back.
02:06 You're not supposed to hit to sort of hurt in a sense.
02:09 But for Taekwondo, you can kick above the waist as hard as you want, as much as you
02:14 want, as much as you can really.
02:16 And Caden, when did you sort of realize that, you know, hold on, I'm actually getting quite
02:20 good at this and it's something that I could maybe make a career out of, make a living
02:24 off as well?
02:25 Were you talent spotted or how did that sort of spiral into where you are today?
02:31 So yeah, my dad's always been into martial arts.
02:36 My brother's tried it a bit as well.
02:38 And then round about when I was 10, 11, I went to a children's international competition
02:42 in Germany and I won that.
02:45 And I was deadly nervous for that because it was foreign people.
02:48 I've never fought outside of Britain before.
02:50 So sort of after that I was like, well, this feels pretty, pretty blooming good.
02:58 The Games in Paris take place in July and August, with Cunningham seemingly set to make
03:03 his debut.
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