Adelaide Barnes staying focused ahead of Olympic push

By Ben Hart, Sportsbeat

Burgeoning taekwondo star Adelaide Barnes admits she was first pushed towards martial arts to help improve her concentration.

The Preston ace now hopes immediately ‘falling in love’ with the sport can fire her towards international success.

Barnes, 17, has certainly knuckled down since first taking to the mat, having claimed two second-place finishes at the British National Championships and a spot on the GB Development Squad.

Those successes have fuelled her desire to represent Team GB at the Olympics and despite the hours of dedication required to reach that level, Barnes says she is enjoying the ride.

“They were like, ‘oh, put her into martial arts to help her focus,’” she said.

“And I did taekwondo, stuck with it and it worked out.

“I totally fell in love with it. It's something that I look forward to every single day, and I never fell out of love with taekwondo.

“But the lows are getting tired, mentally, and physically being in the game of saying ‘I want this, this is what I want to do every day for the rest of my life.’

“Honestly, our schedule changes all the time. Mentally it's hard to be stuck into a professional sport.”

Barnes, who was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, is a member of the Aldi’s Rising Stars programme, an initiative that supports 20 young athletes by providing a financial award to help with training and competition costs, while also delivering personal development opportunities to many athletes through workshop sessions.

The Lancashire star is having to learn on her feet having come to the sport later than those she finds herself competing against, but insists she is relishing the challenge.

“I started late so I don't have a lot of ranking points,” she explained.

“At the minute I’m just trying my hardest to make sure that I get into the Grand Prix and be a top 60 athlete, so I'm up there getting ranking points.

“What I would do in my position is go to all these competitions, try to win as many fights as I could, rack up my ranking points, and then be able to get invited to things like the Olympics.”

As an Aldi Rising Stars athlete, Barnes will receive financial support through Aldi as well as a monthly food voucher to fuel her through training, competitions and hopefully onto future Olympic Games.

And she added: “The money that they contributed is so important for me. Especially when I'm living in accommodation where I'm not living with my parents anymore at such a young age.

“Having that money to go towards food and the vouchers are so convenient for me not to worry about what money to put aside or have to ask my parents for money, because you want to be able to do things yourself.”

Aldi is the Official Supermarket Partner of Team GB and ParalympicsGB and have partnered with Team GB since 2015, ParalympicsGB since 2022 and will be supporting them through to Paris 2024