Taylor Malynyk is going to need to make some space on her wall for a slew of new medals.
The Barrie teen and amateur kickboxer recently snagged two bronze medals after competing in the 2021 WAKO World Championship in Venice, Italy where she represented Team Canada in K-1 kickboxing.
“My first fight was Croatia (and) my second fight was supposed to be Slovakia, but she’d been previously hurt so that was a pass for me. My last fight was (against) Finland, which is who I lost to by just a few points, but I did end up bringing two bronze home, which was super awesome,” Malynyk told BarrieToday after also returning from competition at the Pan Am Games in Mexico where she added even more medals to her growing collection.
Malynyk says getting back into the ring to compete for the first time in over a year was not as difficult as she’d anticipated it would be.
“I thought it would be a lot more challenging, but as soon as I got in the ring, it just came super naturally. There were no nerves and the energy was great,” she said. “There were a lot of people there, which made it really great. I had my dad there… and some national coaches who were super helpful and were awesome and great corner men.”
Malynyk was also in Mexico earlier this week, where she competed in the Pan Am Games in both K-1 as well as in the “low-kick” category.
“There were a few countries that didn’t end up showing up… because of COVID complications, so there were a lot of missing athletes. They tried to put us into more fights to keep us busy,” she said, noting the difference between the two is that you can’t use your knee.
Despite never having competed in that category, Malynyk came out on top and earned herself two gold medals.
“I confused myself a little bit, because I had some K-1 fights and some low-kick fights. … You can knee in one and you can’t in the other… so I found myself hesitating with the knee a lot, but it turned out good and I took home two gold,” she said.
“The goal was definitely to go for gold, but going into a division I had never done before, I didn’t know what the outcome would be. I am glad I did. It was a really great experience and I ended up kicking their butts.”
