Neema Stency Obonyo will be the first Kenyan athlete in action this morning after yesterday’s official opening ceremony of the 17th edition of the Paralympic Games at the Iconic Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées in Paris, France.

The 22-year-old Business Management student at the Nairobi Institute of Business Studies will be facing Egyptian Salma Ali Al Moneem Hassan in the women Para Taekwondo K44 classification 52kg category round of 16 in Grand Palais from 11.53am Kenyan time.

“This is now real…I tried to qualify in badminton and athletics but I couldn’t,” said Neema.

Meanwhile, Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Para-taekwondo athlete Amy Truesdale will be seeking glory at Paris 2024, which will be her first Olympic Games in an Olympic Village, with all that this entails for athletes.

Amy started taekwondo at the age of 8, inspired by Bruce Lee, when her parents enrolled her and her sister in classes to learn self-defence skills, which led to an immediate love affair with the martial art.

“I think having a disability makes me a born fighter,” the 35-year-old from Chester, England, told the website Women’s Health, highlighting her approach to life.

The British Para-athlete recently won a bronze medal in the debut of para-taekwondo at the Tokyo 2021 Paralympics after beating formidable opponents on the taekwondo mat, although she knows the toughest person to beat is her inner critic.

The bronze medal came with mixed feelings as, despite wearing it proudly around her neck, the Briton lost 60-14 in the semi-final to Guljonoy Naimova, who went on to win gold in the following match.
She described the bronze as “the worst performance of my life”, not because of the bronze itself, but because of the fight against her Uzbek opponent, who had clearly outclassed her in Japan.

The para-taekwondo athlete told Women’s Health “My semi-final was without a doubt the worst performance I’ve ever had. I just stood there and did nothing. My mental state was bad, I didn’t perform, I didn’t do anything, and that’s why the score was so high”.

“If you’re a static target, your opponent is going to score a lot of points on you. It was a poor performance,” said the demanding Truesdale, who is ranked number one in the world.

She is a three-time world champion, having won the title in 2014, 2017 and 2023. She is also a four-time European champion, winning gold in 2015, 2016, 2017 and most recently at the last European Championships in Serbia in 2024.

In addition to bronze at Tokyo 2020, she finished on the podium with silver at the 2021 World Championships and bronze at the 2022 European Championships.

Demanding and reflective, Truesdale says Tokyo taught her to change her mindset, recognise her mistakes and focus on the things she can control.

“I think in Tokyo I got too involved in thinking about other people and didn’t focus on myself. What I’ve done to get back on track and just stay in a positive mindset is to focus more on what I can control as an individual.”

“There are so many different variables in taekwondo. I could be the fittest and most mentally focused person on the day, but then I have to compete mentally against myself. I have to fight against a referee. I have to compete against an electronic system, against other people’s decisions. I can’t control the draws and there are so many different variables,” she told Women’s Health.

“Not only that, it is a contact sport and the other person is trying to kick you and sometimes you forget that. I may have a strong game plan, but I can’t control the strength, power and techniques that the other person is going to throw at me. There’s a lot to think about on the day of the match.”

This will be her first Paralympic Games where she can fully enjoy the experience, as the Tokyo 2020 Games (held in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic) were a bit strange, with no interaction between athletes and no Paralympic Village, something athletes really appreciate as it’s where the Paralympic spirit is really felt.

“Paris will be the first time we really experience the Village and what a real Paralympic Games is like.”

But the born fighter is not content with just enjoying her time in Paris and all that goes with the Olympic and Paralympic Games. For months, she and her coaching team have been preparing to avenge the bronze medal she won in Tokyo.