SA karate champion Michelle Wilson bids for Tokyo Olympics berth, while juggling full-time work with raising six-year-old twins
A globetrotting mother of twins is self-funding a bold bid for an Olympic debut just shy of her 40th birthday. But SA karate hopeful Michelle Wilson says the sacrifices will be worth it, if she earns a dream ticket to Tokyo.
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She is the globetrotting mother of twins self-funding her bold bid for an Olympic debut just shy of her 40th birthday.
But SA karate hopeful Michelle Wilson says juggling family life and full-time work, while spending $65,000 chasing her dream, will be worth it, if she earns a ticket to Tokyo.
“It’s certainly busy,” the 11-time national champion said.
“But it’s super exciting.
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“Someone said to me the other day ‘your life sounds exhausting’.
“It is a little bit, but at the same time I don’t know any different.
“I probably might have retired a few years ago, but I’ve had a pretty successful couple of years so I thought I might as well keep going and see where it all ends.
“I’d rather be watching the Olympics knowing that I gave it everything I could to make it, than not giving it a crack.”
She will travel to Dubai this weekend for a Premier League event – her 11th overseas competition in the past 18 months – as she aims to rack up Olympic qualifying points.
The cutthroat quest for one of just 10 berths in the combined +61kg kumite division is even more challenging, given Wilson is raising six-year-old daughters, Layla and Ryleigh.
“It’s definitely harder the older the girls are getting,” said Wilson, who claimed a silver medal at the 2014 Australian Open just five months after giving birth.
“When they were little babies, they were where you left them.
“I could take them to training at night, because they were sleeping and that was easy.
“We’ve been talking for a good year or so about me travelling a lot and being away.
“But I don’t know how mums might have done it before FaceTime.
“Luckily my mum is awesome and helps out a lot with the girls, and my work has been super-supportive.”
Wilson needs to overtake WA’s Rebecca Sullivan, who she trails by just 30 points and three places on the Olympic standings, to represent Australia at the final qualifier in Paris in May.
Before then, she requires strong showings in the UAE, as well as Salzburg, Austria, and Rabat, Morocco, to progress to France, where a top-four finish will guarantee her Games spot.
Otherwise, the world No. 28 will need to land an Oceania wildcard to realise her ambition, which began as a teenager when karate narrowly missed inclusion at Sydney 2000.
“Results are difficult to come by,” Wilson, of Renown Park, said.
“But I probably wouldn’t still be doing it if I wasn’t hopeful.
“In some sports, the benchmarks are really clear – there’s a distance or there’s a time.
“Where as we’re relying on the luck of the draw and the objectivity of the judge.
“But the thing about our sport is world champions go out in the first round (of tournaments), so anything can happen.”
The triple-Oceania champion has accumulated a “bucketload of debt”, flying in and out for global events instead of basing herself in Europe like most of her rivals.
She receives a $5000 annual grant from SASI, but has had to work remotely or take unpaid leave from her job as Adelaide University Sport general manager to continue her journey.
Wilson hopes a Tokyo appearance will open the door for more Australians to thrive in karate.
“If we can get someone to the Olympics, it will just change the game for the next generation,” said Wilson, who took up the martial art for self defence aged eight.
“It would increase the profile of our sport enormously and the support that it would receive.
“It would hopefully mean that it would be way easier for future athletes (to qualify for the Games).”