Carter trying to get a leg up
Mann graduate vying for a spot on the U.S. tae kwon do team
Published: Friday, January 5, 2007 - 6:00 am
The change in his life hasn’t interrupted Kenny Carter’s focus.
Carter, 18, will compete Saturday for a spot on the United States tae kwon do team to the 2007 Pan Am Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“I’m just pushing myself to achieve my goals and hopefully be in the Olympics,” said Carter, a graduate of Mann High School and a freshman at the University of South Carolina.
The reigning national champion in his weight class, Carter said the Pan Am Games is one of two opportunities for tae kwon do athletes in the United States to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
“If nobody qualifies from the weight class in the Pan Am Games, we’ll have to try again at a world qualifier,” he said Thursday.
To earn a spot on the Pan Am team, Carter faces up to eight matches Saturday, but he’s used to managing a heavy workload. During his first semester at USC, Carter wove his training regimen around a class schedule that included calculus, chemistry and a course in his major, chemical engineering.
“If you don’t take the initiative and push yourself, you’ll never make it,” he said. “Independence, I loved having that, but it wasn’t too big of an adjustment for me.”
He tweaked his training regimen, “because I don’t have the resources I had up here in Greenville.”
“I get to train two to three times a week,” he said. “Plus I run, lift and do cardio work on my own.”
Carter is a third-degree black belt and, according to information compiled by his father, has won 152 medals – 114 gold, 23 silver and 15 bronze. In addition, he has received 32 first-place trophies from state, national and international competition. His bio is listed on the USA Taekwondo Web site.
A trip to Rio would be his second opportunity to compete overseas. In 2000, he participated in the Korean Tae kwon do Open.
“It was a great experience for me,” he said. “It opened my eyes up a lot.”
The Pan Am Games are scheduled for July 14-27, and Carter also intends to compete this year at the U.S. Open championship in Orlando, Fla.; the national team trials in Dallas for a spot at the 2007 world championship in Beijing; the United University Championship in College Station, Texas, for a berth in the World University Games in Bangkok, Thailand. And there’s the chance of the Olympic world qualifying event in London.
All the while, he’ll maintain a full load of courses at USC.
“When you’ve done a sport this long, you don’t want to just throw it away,” he said. "You try to do the best you can.
“I’m trying to make opportunities for myself while I can, trying to do as much as possible so that I don’t regret anything in the future.”
http://www.greenvillenews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070105/SPORTS/701050339/1032
Good for visualization obviously but who will be that tall?