“Some moments I’ll just be sitting and thinking and I’ll be like, ‘Hang on, I’m going to the Olympics,’” he told Teen Vogue in an interview. “But then other moments it’s just like, ‘all right, I’m locked in.’ And what I’m really happy about is everybody else is happy for me, my family, seeing how excited they are that I’m going and all the hard work that my mom put in for me and everyone that’s poured into me, they’re just so happy for me and I’m glad that I can make them proud.”

Olympic-bound Taekwondo champ CJ Nickolas's mom could probably beat him in a match: "She got home with bruises and stuff. I was like, ‘shorty, you gotta chill.’” https://t.co/BYwTSW6g6v

— Teen Vogue (@TeenVogue) July 18, 2024

Qualifying for the Olympics was the next logical step in Nickolas’s career. Not only is he number two in the 80kg division world ranking, he was also the only American competitor in the top 20 during the qualification period. The Bay Area-native won a silver medal at the 2023 World Taekwondo Championships and was a three-time gold medalist at the Pan American Taekwondo Championship.

 

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A post shared by Team USA (@teamusa)

“When you look at the whole thing, it looks like too much. It’s a lot that I’ve done in the early beginning of this year, and I’m like, ‘you can’t look at everything because that’ll overwhelm you’ and then I’ll get nothing done,” Nickolas said about his sports career so far. “So that’s my focus right now. It’s just taking it day by day and enjoying the moments in this — smelling the flowers.”

His accomplishments are all the more impressive when learning that he trained while working a full-time job.

“We have two training sessions a day, one from 9 to 11 and then one from 2 to 4,” he said of his schedule. “But those times change and the training changes. In-between training, I’m either going to meetings, taking a nap or something like that, getting physio done.”

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Taekwondo has always been part of Nickolas’s life. His mother signed him up to classes when he was 3 years old and she took on the sport alongside her son. 

“She was taking classes and she was better than me and she kept going up until two years ago — I had to make her stop,” he shared. “She was fighting 18-year-old girls and she’s 63. She got home with bruises and stuff. I was like, ‘shorty, you gotta chill.’”

For Nickolas, taekwondo acted as an outlet and eventually helped him gain a sense of self outside of his home life.

“I was watching Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I was very energetic as a kid, so my mom wanted me out of the house,” he said. “Being able to go to Taekwondo … it gave me a great sense of self. It wasn’t a question of whether or not I was going to continue to do Taekwondo or not. I didn’t choose it. It’s just always been a part of my life.”