World-ranked taekwondo athletes Serena Stevens and Thomas Auger aim for Tokyo Olympics
Love hurts — especially with two black-belt taekwondo champions in the relationship. Serena Stevens and Thomas Auger are both world-ranked martial artists kicking for selection in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The Express
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Love hurts — especially with two black-belt taekwondo champions in the relationship.
Serena Stevens, 22, and Thomas Auger, 24, are both world-ranked martial artists kicking for selection in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
The Bankstown couple met through the sport at competitions across Australia and have been dating for four years.
They moved to Sydney in 2015 to train under Olympic coach Ali Khalil at his Global Martial Arts centre in Liverpool.
While they have tiffs like all couples, Auger said they have never settled the score through taekwondo.
If they did — Auger said it would be a tight tussle.
“I have a big height advantage but she definitely would give me a run for my money,” Auger said.
“It’s really good for me when we train together,” Stevens said.
“Because he’s stronger it helps me a lot — it makes me a bit tougher.”
Recently Auger, ranked 23rd in the world, returned with a silver from the Austrian Open and a bronze from the New Zealand open.
Serena claimed bronze at the 2017 Moldova Open.
In two weeks the pair head to Russia where Auger will compete in the Grand Prix — a benchmark event for the world’s top 32 competitors.
Then they will both compete in Russian Open and President’s Cup in Uzbekistan. Stevens said the world competitions are a necessary part of the sport if they hope to secure ranking points to aid their Olympic selection.
“Increasing your ranking is quite hard so you have to go to a lot of competitions,” she said.
With no funding in the sport, the couple have to self-fund all of their competition travels.
‘We’d definitely like to see more funding, especially for higher level athletes,” Stevens said.
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