Carmen Marton, Taekwondo Champion, We Never Can Say Goodbye

Never can say goodbye.

Sometimes you have to.

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The late legendary global music super star Michael Jackson sang that melody so sadly that in terms of time catching up to all of us, universally it’s easy to understand.

The 2016 Olympics will be the final one for Australian Taekwondo Triple-Olympian Carmen Marton and after an incredibly illustrious career, it’s hard for us to listen to her say goodbye.

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Earning the distinct honor of being Australia’s first taekwondo World Champion, at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, as reported by olympics.com.au, “Carmen Marton has gone down to Turkish fighter Nur Tatur for the second straight Olympic Games.

The three-time Olympian and her bronze medal match nemesis from London entered the final round scoreless before Tatur secured the 11-1 victory in their -67kg clash.”

Carmen has now achieved something that many spend a lifetime striving for. A form of immortality. As long as there is civilization on earth, Carmen will be admired and remembered.

Having her place in history secure, this talented athlete is not content and is passionately preparing for a future of higher goals and a higher purpose.

Carmen was introduced to the sport when she was eight by her father Andrew who had trained in Poland where he group up.

In 2013 when she won, both her brother Jack and sister Caroline also made the Australian Taekwondo team. Both her parents are also graded Taekwondo athletes as well.

If you and your family want to play a game with them, make sure it’s not Family Feud.

By the way. With so many martial arts disciplines out there, what exactly is Taekwondo?

Taekwondo is a Korean martial art.

Taekwondo was developed during the 1940s and 1950s by various Gen. Choi Hong Hi combining and incorporating the elements of Karate and Chinese Martial Arts along with the indigenous Korean martial arts traditions of Taekkyeon, Subak, and Gwonbeop.

The World Taekwondo Federation is the International Federation (IF) governing the sport of Taekwondo and is a member of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF). The WTF recognizes national Taekwondo governing bodies recognized by the NOCs in the pertinent country as its members.

As a junior, Carmen won the silver medal at both the 2001 and 2003 Junior Asian Championships.

The informative and enjoyable female health oriented site womenfitness.net supplies her impressive resume. “At the age of 14 she became the youngest athlete from Australia to win selection on a senior National Team when she took part in the Taekwondo World Cup in Vietnam. At the age of 15 she secured a spot on her first senior National Team competing at the 2001 World Championships in Jeju, Korea. In 2002, at the age of 16 she won a silver medal at the World Cup in Tokyo, Japan in the <59 kg category. In 2004 she won a bronze at the Asian Championships Seoul Korea in the <63 kg category.

She has also competed in the 2007 World Taekwondo Championships competing in the bantamweight and welterweight, winning two fights, the 2009 World Taekwondo Championships finishing in the round of 16, and the 2011 World Taekwondo Championships in the lightweight division, losing to Marina Sumić in the quarter finals. Marton secured a bronze at the 2011 Universiade Games in Shenzhen, China.”

As many of us have learned, sometimes you learn the most from your greatest failures. Carmen learned much from one of hers.

Losing the bronze medal match at the 2012 London Olympics was absolutely devastating. She did learn a great lesson regarding her peak mental state, how to maintain and maximize it and most of all to not be too nice during the match.

She also learned a very important lesson from the life of her parents.

For many of us, it’s difficult to have success in our native country. For someone to migrant from another country and have tremendous success in their new home is highly admirable.

That’s what impressed Carmen about her parent’s story. They came to Australia as refugees from Poland and worked so hard to build a high quality of life for her and siblings.

It motivates her to reach her full potential seeing it as not only her dream but life obligation.

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Carmen has made a decision to stay in Australia and live in Melbourne.

Australia has so many world class female athletes that Femcompetitor Magazine has written about Melbourne many times, so after the basics, let’s travel down a different Melbourne lane.

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Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia and Oceania.

The name “Melbourne” refers to the area of urban agglomeration that spans 3,800 square miles.

The metropolis is located on the large natural bay of Port Phillip and has a population of 4,529,500 as of 2015, and its inhabitants are called Melburnians.

You knew all of that, right?

Here’s something that you might not know.

Welcome to the Laneways.

Let’s have the fantastic city site visitvictoria.com provide us with the inside scoop. “It’s always a thrill entering Melbourne’s hive of bustling, creative laneways, with their covert boutiques, famed restaurants, hole-in-the-wall cafes and astonishing bars.

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Give ‘Main street’ a miss and head down alleyways to find walls covered with stencil work, lightboxes and sculptures that point you to the door of quirky bars. Check out Bar Americano in Presgrave Place, Section 8 in Tattersalls Lane, Croft Institute in Croft Alley and Cherry Bar in ACDC Lane. Find addresses that reveal themselves to be velvety jazz clubs and flashy wine bars, or bare-bone student hangouts and dimly-lit hideaways.

Never forget those tried and true laneways, favored for their reliability. Meyers Place still hosts the eponymous bar plus no-fuss Italian amico Waiters Restaurant, while the Pellegrini’s welcome to Crossley Street is an institution. Hardware Lane, Degraves Street and Centre Place are vying to feed you and ensure you look the part.

More secret art can be uncovered in the galleries that line Guildford Lane. Duck into the old red-brick furniture warehouses and printing suppliers and find lofts showcasing independent exhibitions, and stop for video art at Screen Space.”

You love Aussie land but did you know all of that?

No wonder Carmen loves it in Melbourne.

Now about the future since that’s where we will spend so much of our time.

Carmen has a very active twitter account which shows what she is up to and you’ll see that she is up to a lot. A beautiful girl, she is sought after for many “dress up” social events.

https://twitter.com/CarmenMarton?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

For Carmen, as you might guess, she is very clear about her goals within the next five years.

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In a candid interview with the very nice site www.2xu.com, she shares, “Still working hard toward my dreams – performing in some form or another, starting my own family and giving back to the local and global community to help others achieve their dreams and a better quality of life.”

Good for you Carmen and we fans will electronically be by your side cheering you on.