Robert Carry meets Lenka Marsikova, the Czech Tae Kwondo maven now competing for Ireland, who explains how in spite of adversity throughout her career, she’s still doing what she loves
Faith can sometimes throw up some odd coincidences. The Tae Kwondo career of Lenka Marsikova began in her native Prague some 16 years ago, when she was 17 years of age. The city of Prague – and Eastern Europe in general – enjoys a huge martial arts following, and Lenka opted to join one of Prague’s largest and most well respected Tae Kwondo gyms.
She recalls: “I was interested in the self-defence aspect and I wanted to improve my fitness. Tae Kwondo is very popular in the Czech Republic so it was the obvious choice. I didn’t know what to expect when I went along, but I loved it and so I stuck with it. Over the years I’ve done a bit of aikido and other martial arts, but Tae Kwondo is very much my favourite.”
Lenka worked hard while training in the homeland, but her efforts were not met with much by way of reward. “I was there for 10 years and I never made it to black belt,” she says ruefully. “To make things worse, my instructor said that no matter how long I trained, I would never be good enough to get to that level. I think the reason for this was that there were a lot of very young people doing Tae Kwondo there and the instructor wanted to focus on developing the younger students. But he wouldn’t even let me take part in any competitions.”
Six years ago Lenka moved to Ireland for a change of lifestyle, and she was soon going regularly to the Tae Kwondo Centre in Dublin. With less pressure for places and with better instruction, Lenka’s fighting career quickly developed.
“I first represented Ireland soon after I came here six years ago. Master O’Toole [instructor at the Tae Kwondo Centre] encouraged me and in 2003 I competed in the power event [when competitors demonstrate accuracy and power by breaking various boards] and in sparring.”
She capped off her year by becoming Irish national champion for the first, but not the last, time. Lenka – who trains five times a week for two or three hours a day – then went on to take a European title two years later, and this year she competed at the World Tae Kwondo Championships in Canada under an Irish flag.
Among those assembled for the tournament was a strong Czech team headed by, you guessed it, Lenka’s old club instructor. But rather than facing any animosity from her fellow countrymen and competitors, Lenka found a friendly group eager to wish her well. Her former instructor, however, who previously failed to recognise her talent and prevented her from competing during her early career, went one step further and asked her to jump ship and join her compatriots. For Lenka, the decision was an easy one.
“It was very funny, when my old instructor became the coach of the national team. For the past three years, when I started winning medals, he has been asking me to join the Czech teams. I was very flattered but after everything I just wouldn’t do it,” she says. “No way. What I achieved was because of the people here in Ireland. I got much more support and help here from my club, so why should I? I was there for so many years and I was never even put forward to take part in a competition.”
But despite the history, Lenka has no animosity towards her countrymen, and was hoping they would do well at the last world championships. “I spoke to the Czech fighters in Canada and I got on well with them,” she remembers. “I would always cheer them on.”
But although she would like to see them succeed on the mat, joining up with them – even if her career in Ireland takes a nosedive – is out of the question: “Even if I don’t get picked to fight next year, if I don’t get a place, I won’t go back. I’m not even sure if you can switch countries like that anyway. I think once you represent one country you can’t change. But even if you could, I wouldn’t do it.”
While Lenka undoubtedly sealed a moral victory in the tournament over the ex-instructor who never believed in her, things didn’t go quite as well in the competition proper. “I was paired against the reigning world champion in my first fight,” she says. “She was a huge girl from Finland. She looked like a Viking. The first round was fine, and I think I won it, but she just stepped up a gear in the last two and won them both. I was very disappointed, although I fought the same girl a few years ago and she just swept me away, and this time it was much closer.”
The fact that Ireland managed to muster a team to send onto the mats at all is something of an achievement in itself, given the level of support the form receives here. Lenka, who works for an accounting firm by day, notes: “We don’t get any support, and this compares badly with other countries. We just don’t get anything.”
Even in less wealthy countries – such as Lenka’s homeland, for example – governments step in to help clubs nurture talent. “The national teams don’t have to pay for themselves when the travel to tournaments. They get funding so they’re basically semi-professional,” she says. “The money that governments in Eastern Europe and places like the US, who had competitors in every category of the competition, puts into it is part of the reason why Tae Kwondo is less popular here than it is there.”
The Irish disadvantage was again on painfully obvious display at the last world championships. “The other delegations all had the best equipment and they all have physiotherapists, etc. They were looked after. We had a good tournament but it was in spite of everything; it was really against all odds.”
Somewhat sadly, when the playing field was levelled, the Irish showed just how good they can be, with the junior girls picking up a bronze and silver medal. “They are on the same level as the competitors from other countries because they all have to go to school,” says Lenka. “People at that age all get the same amount of training, so it is more of a fair fight. They did fantastic.”
Respect for your opponent is a key tenet of the Korean martial art, and a social side of the tournaments has sprung up. “When you go to the international competitions you meet people from all sorts of crazy places, like Jamaica or Japan, so I still really enjoyed it,” enthuses Lenka. “It’s strange, but there’s a big party at the end so after you’ve been kicking everybody in the head you go drinking with them!”
But as successful as she has been, Lenka’s Irish experience of Tae Kwondo has not just been a good one on the mats, and she is living proof that the idea of martial arts being an excellent way to help migrants integrate is an accurate one.
“When I came to Ireland I went to my first class and I didn’t know a single person in Ireland,” she says. “I’ve a lot of friends now, but I met them all through the club, the competitions, and the seminars.”
So what is it about Tae Kwondo that has made Lenka stick to it for so long? “It’s really very varied and there are a lot of different aspects to it. You can do various things. You can do sparring, kata, or breaking boards in a power test.
“In Prague the focus is on the younger fighters, but here it is much more mixed. My favourite part of it is the sparring, which can be very exciting, but it’s not for everyone. Those people can still take part in the other areas and can still compete.”
The power test, where boards are kicked or punched as a demonstration of strength and accuracy, has proven particularly demanding for Lenka. “If you don’t break the board you break your hands,” she points out. “I broke my foot hitting a plastic board! There’s a line on them that you have to hit. If you don’t hit that particular weak point then it won’t snap, no matter how hard you hit it. There can be a lot of pain involved if you do it wrong, but I enjoy doing it.”
