Meet Team GB's taekwondo star hoping to turn the tables on Tokyo 2020 team-mate
Rebecca McGowan went to Tokyo 2020 as an understudy to three-time taekwondo world champion Bianca Cook (née Walkden) – now she is crossing her fingers that she has done enough earn selection for Paris ahead of her illustrious teammate.
The 23-year-old from Dumbarton has enjoyed a stellar 2023, winning silver medals at both the World Championships and the Grand Prix Final, the latter in Manchester earlier this month. That was enough to clinch a quota place for Team GB in Paris next year, but now there is a decision for GB Taekwondo and performance director Gary Hall to make between McGowan and two-time Olympic bronze medallist Cook with just one spot per weight category.
It is not as straightforward as it might seem, with Cook having undergone surgery on both knees, meaning that she was not at 100% in Manchester, but purely based on results, McGowan has a very strong case.
She said: “I’ve qualified the space being the highest-ranked heavyweight in the +67kg. GB Taekwondo have a selection process, there are selection meetings looking at the criteria they have set out for the year and pick who is the best option and going to win the Olympics. We’ll have the European Championships next year but the big competitions for selection were done throughout this year.
“I just focus on myself and doing what I need to do. It’s one of the things I’m most proud of. There can be a lot of white noise in the background with there being a legacy behind. But I did what I wanted to do, getting the medals I needed to get to be in a very good position in making sure I’m the one to go.
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“Being able to get that experience (in Tokyo) gave me a fire in my belly that I’ve never had before. I’d done almost the entire prep and not being able to do that final part, I wasn’t going to do it again for this one, I was making sure I was going to be the one that was fighting there.”
McGowan will be looking for gold in Paris (Getty Images)If McGowan does get the nod, it will be testament to her resilience. Battling injury comes with the territory in taekwondo, but even so, she has gone above and beyond on her Olympic quest. A fortnight before the World Championships in Baku in May, she was barely able to walk because of a pair of broken ribs but still managed to earn a silver medal despite few giving her a shot of even getting through a round.
Then in Manchester she also had to deal with a gruesome finger injury, and while it eventually led to her pulling out of the final, she had already shown more than enough to that point, including a win over Solene Avoulette in the semi-finals, with the Frenchwoman having beaten Cook in the previous round.
McGowan explained: “I had an injury going into the competition, my finger was at a right-angle a few weeks ago. It was fine going into the competition, I got it in a really good place but I took quite a lot of knocks on it and by the end of the day, I was in a lot of pain and struggling to put my glove.
“I’d done what I wanted to do that day, had given really good performances and beaten really high-class people in the competition who are going to be some of the big hitters in the Olympics next year. I performed really well so we said let’s call it there and take what we’ve done as a positive.”
Rebecca McGowan with her silver medal following her withdrawal from the final due to injury in Manchester (PA)McGowan is one of over 1,000 elite athletes on UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Programme, allowing them to train full time, have access to the world’s best coaches and benefit from pioneering medical support – this is vital on her road to Paris.
With her family and friends, affectionately known as the Tartan Army, cheering her on, McGowan will not be lacking for support if she makes it to Paris. And chief among them is childhood friend Michael Devine, the person who inspired her journey to the top.
“I had a love/hate friendship when I was five or six years old with a boy who lived across the street from me,” McGowan said of Devine. “One day we would be best friends, laughing and smiling and then the next day we would be beating lumps out of each other in the street. I found out that he did taekwondo, I thought he’d get an edge on me so I decided to do it and do it better than him.
“I joined and I just fell in love with it. We’re still really good friends to this day so it worked out well. He’s supporting me on my way to Paris but not trying to kick lumps out of me anymore.”
With competition done for the year, McGowan will now take the time to rest up and heal from the wounds of battle. Her Christmas wish will be that she has done enough to go from understudy to star attraction.
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