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THE DAILY NEWS      FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6 2002

MIKE DEMBECK

Sarah-Lynne Knockwood recently won a world championship.

Taekwondo has become a family affair for the Knockwoods, with Sarah's younger sisters, Rhonda, 13, and Nicole, 11, taking up the sport. Nicole won two bronze medals at the Indigenous Games.

"Rhonda has been doing very well. Nicole is younger and hasn't competed at the worlds or Indigenous Games, but she is doing well in the smaller tournaments."

Knockwood says she hopes to go to the worlds again next year. Her long-term goals are even more ambitious, with the teenager planning to pursue a science degree at Saint Francis Xavier as a prelude to attending Medical school at Dalhousie University.

By PETER CRNOGORAC
Special to The Daily News

Sarah-Lynne Knockwood likes to knock people around. As a taekwondo enthusiast, it goes with the territory.

Knockwood, 16, got involved with the martial art three years ago and has rapidly risen up the ranks. In the last year alone, she has won 11 medals, including gold at the open world championships last month in Miami.

"I went down (to Florida) thinking I didn't come all this way for nothing," said Knockwood, who lives in Enfield. "I wanted to win the gold. So many people worked hard to get me down there, and I wanted to bring something back to them."

Knockwood won three matches in the under-16 lightweight division, the first against an opponent from Great Britain and the second against a tough fighter from the Netherlands. In the final, she defeated another girl from Great Britain.

"By that time, I started to relax and was able to fight my own way" she said of her last bout.

An all-around athlete who plays for her school basketball and rugby teams, Knockwood got involved with taekwondo almost by accident.

She had known very little about the sport, which originated in Korea and is characterized by fast, high and spinning kicks.

"I was a boxer first, but decided I wanted to do kickboxing," said the Grade 11 student at Hants East Rural High School. "While looking around for a kickboxing club, she came across a taekwondo club in Dartmouth and decided to join."

Her instructor, Dave McKenna, saw a spark in his new student from the outset.

"Some people in the club don't get serious right away but Sarah has been serious about taekwondo from Day 1," he said. She’s very consistent.

Besides the world championships, for which she stepped up from a red belt to a black belt in order to compete, Knockwood also won gold at the Pan American championships and the Indigenous Games, held this year in Winnipeg.

The latter accomplishment held special significance for the Mi'kmaq, who is a member of the Indian Brook Band. "I was proud of that win," she said.