Carmen's Story
Carmen Marton first tasted international taekwondo success as a junior, winning gold at the Korean Open in 2000. The following year she won a silver medal at the Junior Asian Championships in Taiwan and followed it up with another silver in 2002 at the World Cup in Japan. She won a bronze medal at the 2003 Australian Youth Olympic Festival and featured on the podium a number of times in the following years. Encouraged by these achievements, but unlucky to miss selection for the Athens Olympics, Marton won a bronze medal at the 2005 World Championships in Spain. She was selected for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and reached the quarter-finals.
Marton’s second trip to Olympic competition was alongside fiancé Safwan Khalil as the pair were Australia’s only taekwondo representatives at the London 2012 Games. Marton competed in the U/67kg division. After going down in the semi-finals to eventual silver medallist Nur Tatar of Turkey (6-0), Marton then fought for the bronze eventually losing to Germany’s Helena Fromm as she finished the competition in 5th.
She made history in 2013 when she became Australia’s first ever taekwondo world champion after defeating South Korea’s Kim Hwi-lang in the dying seconds to claim the -62kg title in Puebla, Mexico. She returned for a third Olympic Games in Rio where she lined up again alongside Khalil as well as her older sister Caroline. She faced her London 2012 nemesis Nur Tatar in the opening round going down 11-1 to bow out of the competition.
