Challenge 8: The medal

114. Have you ever struggled mightily and succeeded? Describe what you have felt at the glorious moment of victory? What does a winner feel?

Finally it was the time to show what I have prepared every single day for three months. Standing in the middle of the big performance field, I looked around and decided that I will never let lose my chance. In this very spot I stand, I would show my every move of PoomSae of Tae Kwon Do with all my energy. I took a deep breathe as I looked at the shiny banner hanging on top of the stadium board on which was these words: Karnataka State Championship, India.

As the crowd’s shouting grew louder was my nervousness and exhaustion increasing. The competition was harder than I had imagined. Different people of a big range of diversity showed their talents in Tae Kwon Do: Europeans, Americans, Asians, kids, adults, and so on. All the judges were Indian National representatives of Kukkiwon, the World’s Tae Kwon Do institution. I had stood in front of the judges for more than 7 times. Now was the final. Just the three out of around three hundred competitors waiting to compete including me. All the other events that were happening simultaneously were over. The other two final competitors had showed their last PoomSae. One of them got a really high score, a 70 out of 80; it made me get more butterflies in my stomach. And finally was my turn. With thousands of eyes starring at me, I performed my very last PoomSae with all my power. I couldn’t let all my hardship that I went through go in vein. As soon as the director said “Start,” my body started performing without my mind knowing it. I was back to my sense when I heard thousands of people clapping for me, screaming and shouting. All were happy including me, my mom, my master and the audience but the judges. They started discussing whether I am disqualified or not. I did not know what mistake I have done to be disqualified nor did the audience understand. The audience started questioning the judges. And soon after that, the judges raised their score boards and the total of my score was a 77 out of 80.
I had won the gold medal of Karnataka State Tae Kwon Do Championship! It felt like I got the whole world in my hands.

Later on when I found out that the judges were hesitating to give me a score because they were bribed by the second prize winner before the competition, that gold medal seemed so different. It symbolized the true defeat with pure hard work over bribery. More than the fact that I was the winner of the Championship, the fact that I was able to move the audience and the judges’ hearts to support me was incredible. Standing on that amazing victory stand, I took a deep breathe as I looked at the same banner now in my hands, promising to myself that I will fight only the right way with sincerity and honesty because I know that unexplainable feeling of being a true winner.