Road To The Olympics

by Fergus Yeung 6G

The final story assignment of 2024-2025, starting from the Create an Emotion lesson.

Tim arrived at his first Karate class. He took a deep breath comforting himself.

“Hello students, welcome to your first class of the year.” The coach said.

“First, I’m going to test your knowledge about Karate. Hold this for me please.” he said to Tim, he lifted up the wooden plank.

“And this student, can you come out and perform a kick for us?” He said to a student called Jim. Jim stood up and posed, he dashed to Tim. 

Seeing the charging person, Tim instinctively shrugged his shoulders and stood back. 

Jim jumped, lifting his leg. 

Jim stopped in the air, like time had stopped. And he thought of the stuff that inspired Tim, all the Olympic events that he only loved and the thing that inspired him to be an athlete.

Two months ago, Tim saw a Paralympics athlete from Mainland China called Carson Ng. He watched his documentaries and a scene in the video recorded the athlete as a kid breaking a wooden board, and compares to him now which tells people to keep going even if you don’t have the best body from birth, and it worked on Tim.

“He’s right, even if I don't have the best degree, I can still succeed!”

And so, Tim started to think about what sports he is going to train for.

Tim remembers the bullies, pranks and even life-threatening experiences he had in high school and thought of a sport that could help him with that.

“Right! Karate! I’ll get payback on those jerks!”

And so, Tim signed up for Karate classes, starting the journey to the Olympics. 

Then, Tim came back to reality, he bravely stood forwards and landed a perfect block on Jim and the coach was impressed.

“Wow, what a nice block it was! Keep going!”The coach said. Tim was improving day by day. 

His coach even said, “Are you some kind of secret genius? You're learning really fast!”

“It’s just hard work, because I want to achieve my dreams!” Tim responded. 

After two years of hard work, he arrived at his first competition. He won rounds and rounds and said, “Ha! No one could defeat me! This’ll be easy!” 

But then, a stunning defeat came in the finale. He was taking hits for seconds and seconds and he eventually lost. Tim arrived home with tears coming down his cheek with his big eyes. In his head, a wave of memories and headaches of what he once was had taken over his brain.

“Hahahahahaha!” The sound of his fellow orphans reminded him of his nightmares and terrible sleepless nights. These all were floating on top of his head again and reminded him of all his bullying and embarrassing experiences. 

Once he was hurt from all the bullying and went to the hospital. He did a full check on his body, he came out with broken ribs and depression. He lived with it for 2 years and was finally cured. But he still got PTSD from those horrible memories. 

“Umph!” Another big wave of pain came over which made him punch the ground, knocking away the thoughts from his head.

“I was too overconfident!” he said to himself.

It felt like no matter what he does, he fails. Even as a pizza delivery boy, he was given a 1 star on Yelp because of traffic and that paycheck he got was only enough for a small meal. He took a day off for training and played his favorite documentary of Carson Ng. 

He thought, “Failure isn’t bad. It's just how you look at it. Even if I failed, it’s not the end of the world. It gives me a reason to work harder!” 

He realized that there was always a stronger person to face. So he trained even harder for the next three years. He put effort and heart into the training aiming for his ultimate goal. He did board breaks, practised his power in his punches. 

In the meantime, Jim also was training hard. They both trained and trained and it finally came down to this one competition which qualifies who can go to the Olympics.

Tim walked up to the Stadium of The Masters. In this stadium, many people have become olympians, world records were broken and Tim believed he was going to be one of them today.

He walked to the Karate stadium, arriving at his first battle in the competition. All the spectators clapped for him and his enemy, Tam.

Tim started the fight dashing forward and Tam threw a straight punch and Tim barely dodged and stuck a bad landing.

Tam followed up with a sweep.

Tim jumped up and a barrage of attacks went off of him and he only landed a few hits.

Then Tam threw another punch, but Tim countered by kicking Tam away and won.

After being victorious , he took a long, deep breath just like his first time. In the semi-finals, he faced Jam, a local Karatist that's also been training hard. Despite facing a non-professional enemy, he made sure he was not overconfident and started the fight carefully. Tam did everything he could but nothing worked on Tim and he got taken down shortly after. Then it finally came to the finals…

In the hallway, he took another deep breath and thought of what he had worked for and if it was finally going to pay off and unexpectedly, he was facing Jim, his old classmate. 

“What? I didn’t know you were here?” Tim said.

“Well you know now, and quit talking. Fight me!” Jim said

Jim started off the fight with a kick aiming at the neck. Tim blocked it and countered the attack by pushing him away using his leg. Jim reposed and said, “No more holding back!”

Jim charged and traded attack and attacks with Tim rapidly, until them both were pushed back.

“I can feel it! My inner martial artist!” Tim charged for a flying kick with abnormal strength as Jim was trying to block it. 

But Tim delayed the kick and it caught Jim off guard and knocked him away for the mat.

Tim laid down on the mattress. 

He won the final qualifier. 

Tim was ecstatic as he finally achieved his dream. Jim walked over with his hand covering his stomach.

“C….C…Congrats! You won!” Jim said.

“Are you ok?That kick feels pretty harmful.” Tim said.

“Y…Y…Yeah I’m good.” Jim said.

“May we fight again sometime?” Tim asked.

“Sure, Mister Olympic athlete!” Jim answered.