Costa Rican taekwondo champion María José Calderón, closed 2016 with a gold medal at the Open in Las Vegas, U.S.A. after winning the first silver medal in taekwondo for Costa Rica in the XI WTF (World Taekwondo Federation) World Taekwondo Junior Championship 2016 which was celebrated in Burnaby, Canada.

Now, she has received the news that she is holding the second position in the world taekwondo ranking in the category of -44 kilograms.
“I am very proud of how far I’ve gotten, this is all thanks to my family and the Federation that have given me a lot of support”, stated Calderón.

15-year-old María José also affirmed she was not going to rest until she sees her name in the first place of the ranking. In order to accomplish this, she will participate for the necessary points in the 2017 Pan Am Open International Taekwondo Championship and the Costa Rica Open, both events will be taking place in Costa Rica in the months of August and September.

“My goal is to make it to the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Figures that have already been through this process like Heiner Oviedo and Kristopher Moitland have helped me a lot, they push me to move forward, they tell me I can achieve big things, but staying humble goes first”, Calderón commented.

The Costa Rican athlete is only 37 decimal points behind the first position, which is held by Vietnamese Kim Ngan. Anke Gevers from Belgium is in the third position, Napaporn Charanawat from Thailand is number 4 and the top 5 is completed by Spaniard Irene Laguna.

According to the President of the Costa Rican Taekwondo Federation, Wilmar Alvarado, the accomplishments of the different athletes in this discipline and the process they have been carrying out is only possible with the help and support provided by the Costa Rica Institute of Sports and Recreation (ICODER) which has given annual support to this sport and has provided scholarships for the athletes; Calderón is actually one of the athletes that benefits from this.