Valdez tops speed kick tourney

When she was 15, Abigail Valdez scored a tournament knockout by landing an ax kick, a taekwondo move that slams the full weight of the foot on an opponent’s head.

Her rival, she recalled, quickly got up to her feet only to stagger back to the canvas. “I was worried about her; good thing she recovered right away,” she said.

Immediately, Valdez realized brute force was among her potent weapons. Now 18, she has added to her strengths: “I’ll say it’s power, tactics or techniques and also fighting heart.”

She needed none of them, though, when she captured the senior female bantamweight gold medal in the recent 2020 Smart/MVPSF Global Online Speed Kicking Championships.

Instead, she went for sheer quickness, accumulating 80 clear kicks in 60 seconds to rule her category.

“I usually go for quality [kicks] instead of quantity; but the important thing is you need to adjust to the rules,” the World Junior Championships (2016) and Asian Juniors (2017) bronze winner said.

“Given a chance, I want to compete in the next Southeast Asian Games or maybe someday the Olympics,” she said.