JADE COMES OUT FIGHTING... AND HAS HER SIGHTS SET ON A THIRD GOLD IN PARIS
AHUNDRED and fifty-three days on from Tokyo Olympics heartbreak, Jade Jones is in a very different place. The Welsh taekwondo superstar sounds relaxed over the phone speaking just a few days before Christmas. The 28-year-old is nearing the finish line of her 10-day isolation period in Manchester, where she lives, having tested positive for Covid.
A Christmas movie marathon has kept her occupied (Miracle on 34th Street is the latest festive pick) while Jade, ever the glass-halffull advocate, jokes that at least she’s had extra time for present-wrapping.
Luckily, her quarantine was over in time for her annual festive trip home to Flint to be with her family on December 25.
“Luckily I’ve not been ill, it’s just felt like a bit of a cold,” she says as she launches the Jade Jones Scholarship. “I’ve never not gone home for Christmas.” Even with Covid, Jade’s renowned downto-earth, relaxed and amiable character is untouched.
Her situation is a far cry from the last time many will have seen her: giving an emotional post-defeat TV interview which saw the teary double Olympic gold medallist try to explain her shock opening-round loss at her third Olympics.
She had been gunning to become the first British woman to win gold at three consecutive Games.
“Coming out (to Tokyo) was hard, I felt scared, I felt just too much pressure”, she said at the time. “I just kind of got trapped in that fear mode.”
Five months on from the Olympic fight which felt more like a test event, Jade is refreshed after a few months away from the mat – she had been training full-time for around three weeks before contracting Covid – and openly talks about what happened in Tokyo.
“I think I kind of just got wrapped up,” she says.
“There was a lot of things that affected me going into Tokyo.
“I’ve always been quite single-minded, like ‘I just want to win for me, I’m just going there and doing anything it takes’, whereas I kind of got wrapped up into the media element almost, everyone telling me I’m going to be three-time Olympic champion.
“In the end, by the time I got there, there was nothing to kind of gain, it was just pressure and almost the fear of not getting it. I’ve never really been bothered about that before, it’s just been ‘I’m going to win, what will be will be’ kind of thing.”
No family or crowd being able to cheer her on also had its impact.
“I’m a big-game fighter,” she added. “I love a crowd, I love my family being there, I love that ‘do or die’ kind of pressure, but it literally just felt like a test match. It was just horrible, and I couldn’t kind of get my head into the zone.
“I learned what’s important, being ‘eyes on the prize’ and not caring about anything around you, all the noise.
“I’ve almost learned to make sure I shut it out the next time.”
Momentarily, Jade – who shocked the world at London 2012 as an unfancied 19-year-old who won gold before backing it up at Rio 2016 – was angry with her sport, which she stumbled on pretty much accidentally when her grandad Martin pushed her towards a martial art to curb mischievous childhood behaviour. It was by chance it was taekwondo.
“When you win it’s like ‘I love the sport, it’s amazing’ and then when I lost, I did feel in such a low place after having the opportunity to become three-time (champion) and then it literally getting ripped away.
“I just didn’t feel like myself, I wasn’t me at all.”
Jade considered retirement, but it didn’t take long for her passion to return – aided by her involvement in grassroots taekwondo in recent months.
“I learned what makes me me, going back to grassroots,” she says. “It is just the love of the sport, basically kicking someone in the head, sparring someone and enjoying that scrap, and it so happened I got a gold medal from it.
“It wasn’t until I went back and realised how far I’ve come and everything, look what taekwondo’s done for me, it reminded me of not thinking of the pressure of fighting and things to come of it.”
Losing in Tokyo showed Jade who was really in her corner, and the people of Flint are right at the top of that list.
“They still did the bus tour in Flint,” she said.
“I was on the bus, obviously lost first round and they’re still taking me round on the bus!” It’s always been the way. The people of her home town helped pay to send her to the Youth Olympics in 2010, which saw Jade win her first gold medal aged 17.
Jade would do the rounds in pubs with an
ashtray for whip-round donations to be collected in. Without that early support, Jade believes she would not have become an Olympic champion.
“I wasn’t from a wealthy background at all, so my dad and my mum couldn’t really afford to take me to competitions so it was always my nan and grandad who would try to help where they could,” she said. “In the end, with certain competitions, they couldn’t even afford it.
“The locals have been so amazing with me from such a young age. Back then they didn’t know I was going to make it to the Olympics or win anything.
“To have that backing before I’d even done anything, I feel like I’ll forever owe the people.”
The memories of that support is why she has decided to launch the Jade Jones Scholarship, aimed at helping young sportswomen living in Wales aged 16-21 who are in the same position she was.
Applicants, who have until the end of the year to apply, must be competing at county, regional or national level in any sport. Two scholarships, in partnership with Under Armour, will provide financial support of up to £5,000 each plus support from Jade, her team and sponsors.
“I’m trying to find those youngsters who’ve got the talent but haven’t necessarily got the backing or the money, and giving them an opportunity that they may not necessarily have had,” she said.
“I often think there’s so many talented people out there, people who can’t afford it or people whose parents have not taken them. So much talent is going to waste and it’s a shame because by the time they’re adults and they can do stuff themselves it’s almost too late. If you get to 18 and haven’t even started, the odds are against you a lot more.
“I always wanted to do something like this but now with the backing of Under Armour, and my other sponsors are happy to help with it, it’s an amazing opportunity to be able to start giving back to people who are in the same position that I was once in.
“This is the first year of the scholarship and hopefully in the next few years I can take it even further and hopefully there’ll be more slots in the years to come.”
As for her own career, Jade admits she is “hungrier than ever” and still harbours ambitions to achieve a third Olympic gold medal. She is targeting Paris in 2024.
“After dusting the cobwebs off, I’m starting to feel better again,” she says.
“It’s mad how quick you lose your fitness, and obviously all the technical ability in taekwondo, you just feel like an absolute beginner again and you think ‘can I even do it anymore?’ because you feel so bad.
“But when I’ve been doing it for this long, it only takes a couple of weeks to get back into it and think ‘I’ve still got it, I’ll be all right’.”
Team GB are staging a test event in their academy in January, before Jade heads to a training camp in Korea before properly getting back on the mats in February.
“We’ve got another few years now to kind of see what I can do and get that winning feeling back and just enjoy training and sparring and enjoying what I do best,” she says.
“Obviously I’ll take it year by year but definitely aiming for Paris. I’ve learned a lot since Tokyo.
“Hopefully I’m going to take that on to Paris and can still make that magical story happen with the third gold.
“It’s not over yet!”