Woolley: My biggest lows were good for my sporting career

Taekwondo athlete Jack Woolley poses for a portrait during the European Games team day for Team Ireland - Krakow 2023 at Crowne Plaza Hotel in Blanchardstown, Dublin. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

He’s in a different place now – physically and mentally. When Jack Woolley thinks back to the summer of 2021, when his face became known to the nation for two very different reasons, he knows little he faces on the road ahead could be any tougher.

First there was the Tokyo Olympics, the Dubliner completing a lifelong dream to get there as Ireland’s first ever participant in Taekwondo. But after losing his opening fight at 58kg, it began to feel like a nightmare, the tears flowing, the emotion spilling, as the Dubliner opened his heart to the nation about how much it hurt.

“I was so down on myself, I felt like crap,” he says. “It was a very tough two weeks.” Things were about to get worse. After returning home, Woolley was randomly attacked while on a night out in Dublin, which left him needing plastic surgery to repair his lip. The perpetrator, who was not known to him, has yet to be brought to justice.

“I never heard anything back, I think it all got swept under the carpet,” he says. “As soon as it was all over the media a few people didn’t want to get involved at all.” 

But while dealing with two of the biggest lows of his life, Woolley felt a curious sense of calm.

“I kind of laughed and said, ‘Is anything going to get worse? I can only go forward,’” he says. “The loss in Tokyo and the assault in town put a lot into perspective. I came out of it much more positive. Those two negatives are probably the two best things that happened to me for my sporting career. I don’t think I’ll ever feel as low as I did during that four-week period.” 

It took Woolley a couple of months to find his way back to Taekwondo, but come back he did, participating in four international events near the end of 2021, winning three golds and one silver. The Tokyo Games were not what he’d hoped for, the Covid-19 restrictions sucking the soul out of the usual experience.

“We weren’t allowed mix countries or mix sports and, being in an individual sport, for three weeks it was tough to socialise with virtually nobody. I don’t like to be on my phone much but in that time, it was all you had to distract you. I expected the Olympic Village feel, the big stadiums. But it gives you extra incentive to make the next one.” 

When Woolley talks of the Paris Games next year, he does so in concrete terms. The qualification period runs across four years, the window for Tokyo closing on 31 December, 2019, the window for Paris opening on 1 January, 2020. The top six on rankings will earn an automatic place, meaning they won’t have to rely on the continental championships. Woolley is currently ranked sixth, though says “five, six, seven and eight are all really tight.” 

The rules of his sport have also changed, the points system replaced by a rounds system, and whoever edges the best-of-three format is the winner. “It’s been more unpredictable, the favourites are not walking the competition as they used to,” he says.

In the past six weeks, Woolley has been out there on the circuit – from Spain to Bosnia to Azerbaijan to Rome. At the World Championships in Baku last month, he was beaten by Turkey’s Omer Faruk in the last 16 on a split decision.

“It was disappointing to lose but it was against a really strong competitor. It took a couple days but when you realised you lost to a good-level athlete, it’s not like losing to a complete unknown.” 

He heads into the European Games in Poland tomorrow against many of the same competitors, knowing there’s precious little between the top fighters. It will be his last competition for a couple of months and, regardless of how far he goes, all his fights will take place tomorrow at the Krynica-Zdroj Arena. He feels ready.

“I’ve been to Europeans a good few times, got three silvers, and it’s about time for a gold,” he says. “There’s no one in the division I haven’t beaten. I expect a medal, and there’s no reason that can’t be gold.”