Taekwondo world junior champ benefits from AMP grant

TOP CLASS: ITF Junior World champion Frances Lloyd training at Silla Taekwondo in Te Puna. PHOTO/ANDREW WARNER

Frances Lloyd is living proof you can achieve almost anything if you work hard enough.

The 16-year-old from Tauranga Girls' College is the current ITF Junior World champion and hopes to defend her title next year at the world championships to be held in Dublin, Ireland.

Frances was one of 11 talented young New Zealanders selected from more than 2,000 applicants to be awarded an AMP Scholarship worth $10,000.

"That $10,000 scholarship has gone towards the air fares, the accommodation and the gear I need to buy to progress," she said.

"To know that a big company like AMP will take my sport so seriously and to actually sit down with me and want to know what I want to do on my sport that was the most humbling thing about getting this scholarship."

Her next major event was the ITF Taekwondo World Cup in Budapest in October.

"I am flying out in about four weeks to go to Budapest and I will be representing New Zealand.

"I am a first dan black belt and will be going over there for individual sparring and individual speciality.

"I have been doing a lot of training and strength training in the gym with my personal coach Paul Pou who has been helping me out heaps. I have also been doing lots of training every Sunday up in Auckland with the squad that is going over.

"I have been doing lots of teaching here at Silla during my spare time. I am down here every Monday and Thursday teaching the little kids."

For Frances, taekwondo was more than a great way to keep fit.

"I have a moral compass due to taekwondo consisting of courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit," she said.

"Those are the five things that I put into my life.

"Taekwondo has given me the opportunity to learn those and experience those in the dojo (training hall) and then I can apply them to my life outside of the sport.

"That is what I hope to pass on to my students - that they will always have grounded roots of those five things to base their life upon, so they can go on and do what they want."

There were two major branches of taekwondo - WTF Taekwondo is the Olympic version with ITF Taekwondo which had a world championship every two years.

Frances was a proud member of Silla Taekwondo based in Te Puna and had been involved in ITF Taekwondo since she was six.

She said people often ask her about switching to WTF to try and win an Olympic medal.

"I have had a lot of questions about that. The fact that I could go to the Olympics does play on my mind but I don't think I could divert to a different martial art because this is where I belong.

"ITF has taught me how to do my sport and how to perceive life. WTF is more of a competition based sport where as ITF is more a defensive martial art."

■Frances Lloyd is featured on Dare to Dream, TV One, Sunday September 18, 4pm
.