Jack Woolley: Ireland's history-making taekwondo star's story of resilience 

Last year at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Jack Woolley became the first-ever Irish athlete to compete in an Olympic taekwondo competition.

It was the fulfilment of a childhood dream for the 24-year-old, who is the second highest ranked men’s -58kg athlete at this week’s World Taekwondo Manchester Grand Prix.

However, after a journey that has been littered with adversity and challenges, the athlete still has unfinished business on the road to Paris 2024.

A prodigious talent suffers Rio heartbreak

Woolley first came into the public eye when he featured in the RTE Road To Rio documentary as a 17-year-old, where he suffered heartbreak by narrowly missing out on qualification for the Rio 2016 Games.

However, his path to the Olympics started long before that when as a five-year-old he watched his brother, who was a victim of bullying, begin to train in taekwondo at a local club.

“My brother was bullied in school, that was the initial reason why my parents got him in,” Woolley explained in an interview with the42.ie earlier this year. “He’s five years older than me, so I was sat down in the back watching him, thinking: ‘I can do that, I can do this.’

“You weren’t allowed to start until you’re six, so as soon as my sixth birthday came around, I jumped right in and they were like: ‘Well you’re pretty good at this.’”

From these early beginnings, where his gymnastic ability and athleticism marked him out from other children his age, Woolley began to take the sport more seriously and by the age of 12 had been identified as someone who had the potential to go to the very top of his sport.

“He has what it takes to be someone big,” his coach said at the time. “Don’t let him waste the lessons.’”

Living in an area that was notorious for anti-social behaviour, Woolley says that the sport saved him from getting into trouble as a youth, and by the time the Rio 2016 Olympics were coming around his competition record had put him in a strong position to win a spot at the Games.

However, just when his dream was within touching distance, Woolley fell at the last hurdle. Needing gold or silver in his final competition that would have secured his qualification, he ended with bronze.

"As a young athlete coming up and wanting to qualify for the Olympics, I knew there was nobody before me and I knew there was nobody at the time that could have pushed for it,” he reflected, looking back on the 2016 Games.

"Missing out on Rio, I was devastated but I wanted to be the first in history from Ireland to do it, so there's absolutely no pressure there.”

Refusing to be labelled

One highlight of the Road To Rio documentary was when Woolley opened up about his bisexuality. It led to some opponents refusing to shake his hands in competition, but also strong demonstrations of support from within the taekwondo community. 

“One of the top fighters in the world came up to shake my hand after I won the European silver,”  he told Extra.ie in 2020. “I appreciated that.”

However, no matter how brave and groundbreaking it was at the time, Woolley now believes his decision to come out was taken too quickly and has led to stereotypes he doesn’t want to be defined by. 

“I just wish I never labelled it,” he said. “I still don’t like labelling it. People are just hell-bent on giving everyone labels nowadays.”

And rather than focusing on his personal life, Woolley is determined to be seen as a trailblazer in his sport - starting with making history by becoming his country’s first-ever taekwondo Olympian. 

As he said himself in 2020: “I want to be the first Irish Olympian in my sport, the lad from Tallaght who went to the Olympics, not Jack the gay athlete.”

Heartbreak on the road to history in Tokyo

While the road to Tokyo 2020 led to personal glory, the path was also littered with challenges.

In 2018, Woolley’s beloved grandmother died while he was competing in Poland, and his father contracted meningitis weeks later, leaving him in hospital for a number of months.

Woolley turned to a psychologist from the Sport Insitute of Ireland, who helped him through the difficult period after a dip in performance caused by the stress of the situation.

Finally, in 2019, after a number of impressive performances that included silver at the European Championships, Woolley achieved his dream of becoming an Olympian.

In a reverse of his Rio 2016 situation, where he needed gold or silver to qualify for the Games, People's Republic of China’s Yushuai Liang’s failure to make the final at the World Taekwondo Grand Slam in Wuxi, China left Woolley the recipient of a ticket to Tokyo 2020.

History had been made for Woolley and for Ireland.

Big goals, Olympic heartbreak and a shocking attack

Woolley entered the Tokyo 2020 Games with high aspirations. He wasn’t there to just make up the numbers.

But in the first round, the young Olympian suffered a devastating defeat to Argentina’s Lucas Guzmán.

“Some people come here to participate at an Olympics,” he said in an emotional interview following his exit. “I came here to win it.”

Still, when he returned home to Ireland he was given a hero's welcome. People from his town came out onto the streets to show their pride at what he had achieved, clapping from the sidewalk as he drove home from his Olympic adventure.

It should have been a time for celebration. However, just weeks later Woolley suffered an unprovoked attack in the Dublin city centre that left him needing reconstructive facial surgery.

While walking with a friend after an evening in a bar, a group of men began randomly attacking strangers on the street. One of them punched Woolley in the face, leaving him bloodied on the ground.

It was an incident that sent shockwaves across Ireland.

But not even this act of random violence would stop Woolley in his quest to continue onwards towards his goals of taekwondo greatness. Just three months later he won gold at the Albanian Open, cementing his position as one of the most exciting taekwondo athletes on the circuit.

The next step in Woolley’s journey towards Paris 2024 takes place this week at the World Taekwondo Grand Prix in Manchester, where he enters the event ranked second in the -58kg category and third in the world rankings. It offers him a vital chance to earn Olympic qualification ranking points ahead of the World Championships in Mexico and the series final that takes place in Saudi Arabia in December.

Now, after making history for Ireland as its first-ever taekwondo Olympian, Woolley is in a strong position to go one step further and fulfil his dream of becoming the country’s first-ever Olympic taekwondo medallist.

You can watch Jack Woolley in action at the World Taekwondo Grand Prix live on Olympics.com from 19-21 October.