It was a breakthrough in so many ways.
Burnaby’s Josipa Kafadar had experienced the intensity and excitement of the World junior taekwondo championships before, which put her on a better footing this time around.
But this time the rivals stood on Tunisian ground, not her hometown arena.
It didn’t make any difference – or it did, but in a positive way – as Kafadar climbed her 49-kilogram division to finish second in the world.
Coming off a fourth straight national junior title, she felt confident in her skills and knew that her brief experience at the 2016 worlds in Burnaby provided her a layer of knowledge that she could benefit from.
“Basically, when you’re fighting someone you are never in your comfort zone. At home you do have more of a confidence boost,” said Kafadar, reflecting on the 2016 worlds. “When you are in a different country it’s just, it puts a little more pressure, (and) you feel a little less comfortable. You feel more uncomfortable and a bit more pressure, but I got to overcome it in this tournament and I’m proud of that.”
In the final, she battled Vietnam’s Thi Kim Ngan Ho before falling by an 8-7 margin.
“It was very close. By the end of the first round I was leading, but because she had more reach and was taller, she caught up and then she had a lead for a respectable margin. I caught up at the end but just fell one point short. It wasn’t enough, but it was alright,” she said.
Disappointed, she congratulated her opponent then slowly realized what was accomplished. She was the lone Canadian to advance past the quarter-finals and returned home a silver medallist.
It was her semifinal victory, against Russia’s Anna Kazarnov-skaia, that stoked her Canadian pride and stood out as the biggest moment of the day.
“She was really strong, very powerful and obviously has lots of experience,” recalled Kafadar.
“It was so close, 9-9 in the third round, and basically in the last second I scored the winning point. She tried to catch up but fell short.
“I feel like that was the highlight, and we kind of quieted down the Russia crowd with our Canadian chants. … It was a powerful moment for us.”
You don’t have to have lived through the ’72 Summit Series to understand the importance and raw emotion that comes with such a match.
“I always want to be respectful to my competitors because at the end she did congratulate me. You could tell (Kazarnovskaia) was upset, and obviously I was happy that I defeated a country that everyone had high expectations for,” she said.
In all, Kafadar faced six opponents on the day, winning the first three by point-gap. Her 7-3 quarter-final decision over Iranian Ghazal Soltani provided the best test in preparation for her last two matches.
As someone who’s trained by master Daniel Thornton at Burnaby’s Metro Taekwondo Studio and Vortex Taekwondo in Surrey, Kafadar feels her biggest gains since those 2016 worlds was on the mental side.
“Overall I feel I need to have more of a mature game plan, have to know how to stay calm if something goes wrong. At (the senior level) they have more of that mental strength.”
Now, Kafadar is preparing to move up to that senior level, and will enter the elite division in July at the Pan Am Open in Spokane. Her junior medals will always be proud emblems of past achievements, but the Grade 11 Alpha Secondary student is moving the bar higher.
“I’m excited for the challenge and to see how seniors think differently. They obviously have more experience,” she said. “They’re older and some of them have already gone to Olympics. It will be nice to see how I stack up against those girls.
“When I was younger I always envisioned going to the Olympics, i always had a dream of wanting to be an Olympic champion. I guess I didn’t really think about it when I was younger, like the process of getting there. I always thought of the end goal. I never really thought of the junior world championships. I can appreciate it now.”
