Sunshine Coast martial arts students kick their training into high gear with the 2032 Olympics in sight

Splitting boards is all in a day’s work for a group of Sunshine Coast martial arts students who now have their eyes firmly on an Olympic debut on home soil.

Matt Fiddes Martial Arts students Taj Salisbury and Emily Tarsilli are training hard to represent the Sunshine Coast in the 2032 Games.

Sunshine Coast martial arts student Taj Salisbury says competing at a home Olympic Games would be incredible.

The 15-year-old has been training since he was 8.

The beginning of his dream came true on Wednesday night when the International Olympic Committee announced the 2032 Games would be held in southeast Queensland.

He was part of a group from Matt Fiddes Martial Arts who were breaking boards and running through drills at Kings Beach in the lead up to the announcement on a big screen.

“We’ve been waiting a fair while and with corona it’s great that we are finally able to showcase what we have here,” Taj said.

The teen was drawn into the sport after watching mates join up and find their confidence.

“They were telling me about their martial arts classes and how good they were,” he said.

“I was a fairly shy kid at the time so I was keen to get along with it and I fell in love with it.”

Taj said his love of sport inspired his dream to represent Australia.

“There’s always the hunger for more,” he said.

“You can do whatever you put your mind to … we’re all striving to be the greatest we can and go as far as we can.”

Matt Fiddes students Taj Salisbury and Emily Tarsilli are training hard to represent the Sunshine Coast in the 2032 Games.

Fellow student Emily Tarsilli, 11, has been training for the past four years at the Coast school.

“I love that it’s such a compassionate sport, even though it’s more about self defence it’s with a lovely group of people,” she said.

“I have lots of friends here and we all just train and work hard together.”

She was also keen to make her Olympic debut on home soil.

“It’s definitely very cool … having the Olympics here,” she said.

“(Competing here) would be pretty cool thing to do especially because I’ve worked so hard in my training.

“I think it would be really good to take my goals further.”

Judo made its first appearance at the Games in 1964 in Tokyo.

Women’s judo was added to the program in 1992.

Taekwondo was introduced at the Summer Olympics as a demonstration sport in 1988 in Seoul.

It became a full medal sport at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney and has been a sport in the Olympics since then.

The newest addition to the program is karate.

It is one of four new sports added to the Olympic program specifically for 2020, rather than as a permanent sport.

Matt Fiddes Martial Arts students Tayla Stinton, Harper Weir, Taj Salisbury, Bodhi Baker, Savannah Saville, Gwen Weir, Willow Baker, Emily Tarsilli and Kai Salisbury, are celebrating the 2032 Olympic Games.

Matt Fiddes Martial Arts director Samantha Weir said the 2032 announcement was “very aspirational” for the students.

“Our style is very mixed so we have taekwondo, judo, karate and it is really exciting to see so many different styles coming into the Olympics,” she said.

“It’s exciting for some of our kids to know that they can keep training and reach for the stars and keep going.”

The 38-year-old runs 40 martial arts schools throughout Queensland and New South Wales.

She said the Games could draw more interest in martial arts and keep kids involved in sport.

“(This is) the best job in the world, we get to teach kids from four to teens to adults to families, it’s very rewarding,” she said.

“This whole group are very hungry for next level, they love their competitions … they’ve all got that want for the next level.”

Originally published as Sunshine Coast martial arts students kick their training into high gear with the 2032 Olympics in sight