Reba's Story
Fast Facts
Sport: Taekwondo
Event: Women's Heavyweight
Olympic History: Tokyo 2020
Year Born: 2001
State Born: VIC
About Reba
Reba Stewart began Taekwondo at age 12 and quickly became enamoured with sparring. The Victorian athlete took to the sport quickly and began a rapid ascension amongst the national junior heavyweight ranks.
Five years after first entering a taekwondo studio, Reba earned gold in the junior heavyweight discipline of the Sofia Open with a hard fought victory against Greek athlete Markella Bakogeorgou.
In 2019 Reba competed at the Taekwondo World Championships, where the then 17-year-old reached the last 16 of the competition before narrowly bowing out to eventual silver medallist Zheng Shuyin in what many praised as a highly commendable senior debut on the global stage.
The competition, paired with an intensive training camp in Jordan, poised Reba for the rigours of the senior heavyweight division while providing important learning experiences.
After a surreal 2019, Reba turned her focus to the grandeurs of Olympic competition. She was awarded a tier-two scholarship from the Australian Sport Hall of Fame in 2020, which provided the Maribyrnong College alumnae funding to support her professional growth and training.
Reba booked her ticket to Tokyo on the Gold Coast in early 2020, when she comfortably dispatched of compatriot Rebecca Taylor Shaw to ultimately earn qualification to her first Olympic Games.
With the initial postponement of the Olympic competition to 2021, Reba continued to refine and improve her skills under Coach Jerry Moraitis. She made her Olympic debut in Tokyo amongst the women's heavyweight division, defeated in the preliminary round against Polish Olympian Aleksandra Kowalczuk 7-2.
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