Adele aims for Olympics - with grandad's help
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
SWITCHING sports has paved the way for a Moray schoolgirl to follow her Olympics dream.
Adele Williamson started kickboxing in her primary years, going on to represent Team GB and Scotland in World and European Championships.
But her desire to compete one day at the Olympics, which doesn't include her chosen sport, led Adele to take up taekwondo and she is now on the GB development programme aiming to produce future international stars.
In order to chase her sporting dream, the 13-year-old has to travel to Manchester every month to attend cadet training sessions at the National Taekwondo Centre. She has enlisted some family support, as her grandfather Douglas, who runs the Williamson scrap merchant business in Elgin, has stepped in as Adele's sponsor.
Her mum Cheryl said: "It is Adele's dream and aim to be successful and one day hopefully represent Great Britain in the Olympics for taekwondo."
Yet Adele still competes in both martial arts, and even competed in her first taekwondo competition just days after winning a European Championships kickboxing silver and bronze medal in Macedonia.
She was first introduced to taekwondo by Dave Maddock from BTS Maddogs based in Stoke-on-Trent who trains weekly with BTS Kaizen, part of Elgin's Kaizen Martial Arts club.
The Elgin Academy pupil then responded to a GB Taekwondo post promoting their Fighting Chance programme for athletes aged 13 to 18 with the potential to join their development programme.
"They were doing their next intake for people looking to start their Olympic dream," said Cheryl. "She made up a video and they invited her down to a taster day."
Adele's application was successful and she took part in her phase 1 assessment in Manchester at the weekend.
In kickboxing, Adele became a world champ when she was part of a Scotland team winning gold at the WKC world championships in Florida last year, as well as claiming individual silver and bronze.
A week later she competed in only her second taekwondo competition and won gold for cadet girls -55kg at the Quest Taekwondo Open Championships in Sheffield.
This year she won three golds at the WKA Scottish Kickboxing Championships in Perth, and four golds at the WAKO Kickboxing Scottish Championships in Grangemouth.
In taekwondo she won this summer's Dome Open and 1st Wales International Championships and competes in the Scottish Taekwondo Championships in September.
