Thursdaline Peter is an internationally certified Referee who was recently honoured as the best Taekwondo Umpire in Nigeria and one of the best in the world. In this interview with IKENNA OKONKWO and Eupheresia Nnodim, Thursdaline, an instructor and ex-athlete speaks on why she preferred to become a full-blown taekwondo Practitioner.
In the beginning
I train People on self-defence; I have worshop where I run kiddies summer every year. It’s a sort of self-defence workshop and I have done the third edition this year already. I started my sporting career in full capacity with it.
Before then, I had competed as an athlete. Thereafter, I decided to take a break and channel my energy into training other people not just as taekwondo athletes but also as a self-defenders. I have been into taekwondo practice in the past 12 years.
Becoming a Referee
I choose to become a Referee because I want to drop my weight, I wanted to be fit so I was looking forward to something that could bring me down, tune me and at the same time I could gain from it in a long run. So I discovered taekwondo and I went into it.
I started doing taekwondo and the interest grew. Those who trained me; my trainers, my other partners, my colleagues encouraged me and then I started competing over the years.
I have been competing and I have been winning medals and after like six to seven years, I decided to take a break and I channelled that same energy into officiating but before I officially went into refereeing, I have been attending referee courses seminars, seminars, I have been watching them, I’ve been studying them because then I use to help my coach to carry his things, his materials because he is always most times the resource person so I go about learning how to do all those logistics.
As time went on, he advised me to go into referring then I gave it a try, I went into it and I was encouraged because a lot of people told me you were good in officiating and that boosted my moral and I just had to just keep it up,
Referring for me has been a wonderful life time as I indulge in it. I love it so much, I enjoy personally what I do because when I do it I feel relaxed I feel good about it. It gives me this class, self-confidence and over the years, I have been doing because when you get into officiating, you don’t just go into officiating national tournament, very sensitive tournaments.
The first grade you start is from the kids’ tournament to youth tournament, and then from there, they will start bringing you up. That’s how I started growing and before I knew it, I got into the national and I was doing well. Fortunately for me, I got my first referee award at the CCSF international tournament here in Abuja sometimes in 2013.
Then I also went through my international referee seminar before I was certified. Afterwards, I undertook a referee refresher course in Cote d’Ivore in 2016 and when I went for that refresher course, we had a whole lot of activities including reading test, written test and every other assimilation.
I came out the best outstanding participant in the whole of the seminar with about 200 participants; I and one other woman from Cote d’Ivore. It was a great privilege for me and I was really happy. My performance from that time took me up.
I got my contact, started networking and I was very surprise and delighted when I was called to come and officiate at the world championship earlier this year.
At first, I was so surprise because to me I wasn’t sure I was going to be called for that. It was a G-10 tournament that is Grade 10. For my level, I should be doing like G-1 or G-2 just to start up the game but straight away to G-10 tournament which is the closest to Olympics. So it was a very big shock on my path and I was really excited but at the same time, I took a calm attitude because I really want to see where it will end as time goes by, I prepared myself I travel to Korea where I officiated at the championship.
My first officiating was a good one and I came out and congratulated me. That was my first ever international officiating. After that, I was invited to the Korea opens which usually comes up every year and that was a very big championship too because it comprises of all taekwondo events. I got there and I did my best and I came out as one of the best referee.
I just gave out everything I could at that moment. I did all I could and I made it. It was a very good thing to me and I am really happy and after the world championship experience, I have been getting more opportunities to do other things. I’ve been more recognized. I’ve been going here and there doing my programmes, my self-defence programs.
Self-defence as a martial act
Self-defence is on its own. It’s like a real war in life situation. We train People on how to help themselves in real life situation. So you don’t really come and compete like taekwondo, karate and other sports. It must not necessarily have to do with exchange of physical combat and all that.
