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SMILING ASSASSIN

Bullied as a boy, but now part of arguably GB’s strongest team in Tokyo, taekwondo star Mahama Cho is the...

From Oliver Holt CHIEF SPORTS WRITER IN TOKYO

ThThe US failedfild to win a medal on the opening day of an Olympics for the first time since the 1972 Games.

THERE is always heartbreak to go with elation at the Olympics and in the midst of Team GB’s triumphant Rio Games five years ago, one image of visceral, sobbing despair still haunts those who saw it.

Lutalo Muhammad was half a second away from claiming t he first ever taekwondo gold for a British man when he was denied by the last kick of the -80kg contest by the Ivory Coast’s Cheick Sallah Cisse. Interviewed on television minutes later, Muhammad was inconsolable.

The dream of a first gold for the men’s taekwondo team is still there. In the women’s events, Jade Jones will attempt to become one of a select band of athletes to win a gold in three consecutive Olympics when she fights today but Muhammad is not here to try to salve his pain. He missed out on qualification to his friend Mahama Cho and so it will be Cho’s turn to try to create a piece of British Olympic history when he fights on Tuesday.

Cho is an ideal antidote to the memory of Muhammad’s agony. He is renowned within Team GB f or his relentless positivity and good humour. As he sits in an office at the team’s preparation camp at the Hiyoshi campus of Keio University, near Yokohama, he is bursting with enthusiasm about the task that lies ahead and the joy of the opportunity that awaits him at Makuhari Messe Hall this week. Being here, he says, is a ‘total vibe’.

When it i s mentioned that he and Muhammad are friends, he demurs. ‘Big LT,’ he says. ‘We are more than friends. We are brothers. We are brothers in the ring and out of the ring. If anything, a lot of my success comes down to how I train with him and how we push each other. When you have challenges in your own country, it prepares you ou for what is next.

‘ Bu t this is not a sympathy game. It is a combat sport. You want to be the best, you want to make sure that you are on top of your opponent, you want to show them that you are the No 1 contender r and you have to do that at each and every day.

‘ I was just grateful l the federation chose me as the th athlete to go there and bring home the gold medal. That’s it. In our team, we have the best fighters in the world and our main priority is to bring home the best result for our country. Whoever they pick should be the person who brings home that gold medal.’

There are many who argue that taekwondo is, pound-for-pound, the strongest British team at these Olympics. They have sent five competitors, the most ever, and four of them are regarded as strong medal hopes. Jones is the hottest favourite of all and Cho, who was born in Ivory Coast, and his teammates are drawing inspiration from her example and her attitude.

‘A week back before we came out here, we had a team meeting bonding and we asked her to give us some advice,’ says Cho.

‘She has an aura about her. What I took from what she said was the word she used: belief. She said you can’t just say: “I believe” without meaning it. You have got to believe 100 per cent you can do it.

‘ I 100 per cent believe. I have been waiting for the day to come for so long. To be here gives me goosebumps. I can’t wait to step in the ring and put into practice everything I’ve been working on.’

Cho, 31, who finished just outside the medals in Rio, is so affable he makes an unlikely fighter. He laughs and dl laughs h when I ask him why he wants to hurt people. He talks about his upbringing in the Ivory Coast, how he was bullied as a boy and how taekwondo is, for him, not about hurting people but is, most of all, about mastering a series of personal disciplines in the pursuit of becoming a better human being. ‘We are the nicest people you will ever meet,’ says Cho, still laughing. ‘ If you spend a day with GB taekwondo, you will ill say: “Hang “H on a minute, these guys are fighters but they are a nice bunch”.

‘We are like a family. We tend to be in and out of each other’s houses, having dinner together. We look after each other. When we get into a ring, it is like a mask we put on.

‘We become this different person when you get into competitive mode and you want to annihilate your opponent. You show that you are the alpha. When you get in the ring, it is business time.

‘My father taught me the discipline side before he taught me how to kick and punch. How to be able to understand one another, how h to t control t l your emotions, ti how h to solve problems, how to be patient. Manners are important in our sport: how to conduct yourself, how to speak to people. That comes first. Before combat, it’s respect. When you finish, it’s respect.

‘Once you have won, what is the last thing you have got to do? You have got to respect your opponent. You tell him how great he did. You tell him how tough it was and you encourage him. This is the type of way you want to win. That’s how you become the alpha.

‘When you are in the ring, you are sussing out your opponent, you are finding what his weaknesses are, you are making ki sure you are going to become the dominant figure, you are finding a solution in how you are going to be able to beat him. These are life skills, too. We want to have a perfect way of fighting and a perfect way of living.’

And so Cho aims to replace the vision of pain that was his friend’s distraught reaction in Rio with an image of joy in Tokyo. ‘We have never had a British male Olympic champion in our sport,’ he says. ‘We are here to make history. Our focus is to go out there and put in the best performance ever. You come here for an Olympic gold medal. You don’t come for any other colour.’

Tokyo 2020

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2021-07-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-07-25T07:00:00.0000000Z

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