Bianca Walkden

Bianca Walkden (born 29 September 1991) is a United Kingdom British Taekwondo competitor and a member of the GB Taekwondo Academy.[1] She represented Great Britain at 2016 Olympic Games winning a bronze medal.[2] Walkden is a triple World champion, twice European champion, and twice World Grand Prix Final champion in her division. In 2017 she became the first practitioner ever to win all 4 Grand Prix events in her division in a single season (having also won the one-off Grand Prix Final in London of the truncated 2016 season)

Bianca Walkden
Medal record
Representing  Great Britain
Women's taekwondo
Olympic Games
2016 Rio de Janeiro+67 kg
World Championships
2015 Chelyabinsk+73 kg
2017 Muju+73 kg
2019 Manchester+73 kg
Grand Prix
2016 Baku +67 kg
2017 Moscow +67 kg
2017 Rabat +67 kg
2017 London +67 kg
2017 Abidjan +67 kg
2015 Samsun +67 kg
2015 Manchester +67 kg
2018 Taoyuan +67 kg
2014 Suzhou +67 kg
2015 Moscow +67 kg
2018 Rome +67 kg
World Combat Games
2010 Beijing +67 kg
European Championships
2016 Montreux +73 kg
2014 Baku +73 kg
2018 Kazan +73 kg
2010 Saint Petersburg +73 kg
World Junior Championships
2008 Izmir +68 kg
European Junior Championships
2007 Baku +68 kg

In May 2015 she won the gold medal in the +73kg category at the 2015 World Taekwondo Championships in Russia beating Gwladys Epangue in the final. She became only the second Briton to win a world title after Sarah Stevenson in 2001 and 2011, and the third to win a global title after Stevenson and Jade Jones' Olympic success in 2012.[3]

In June 2017, Walkden successfully defended her world title in Muju, South Korea during the 2017 Muju WTF World Taekwondo Championship. She beat American Jackie Galloway 14-4 in the heavyweight division. She joins Jade Jones as the only British practitioners to defend a global title, and becoming the only Briton to successfully defend a World title in taekwondo.

In May 2019 at the 2019 World Taekwondo Championships, Walkden won the women's heavyweight title after her opponent Zheng Shuyin was disqualified despite holding a 20-10 lead over Walkden. The disqualification occurred because Walkden, in the face of Zheng's inactivity following her attainment of a ten-point lead, but having also accrued seven penalty points, repeatedly pushed Zheng out of the ring to raise Zheng's penalty points to ten. This resulted in boos during the result announcement and medal presentation, when Zheng was criticised for falling to her knees on receiving her medal, Great Britain performance director Gary Hall taking issue with her "disrespectful manner".[4] Walkden defended her tactics, saying: "I went out there needing to find a different way to win and a win is a win if you disqualify someone - it's not my fault."[5]

References
  1. Glean, Amelia. "Who is Bianca Walkden's boyfriend? GB star and Aaron Cook go for gold | Olympics 2016 | Sport". Express.co.uk. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  2. "Rio Olympics 2016: Bianca Walkden wins bronze, Mahama Cho misses out". BBC Sport. 1970-01-01. Retrieved 2016-08-22.
  3. "Bianca Walkden is GB's second ever World Taekwondo champion". BBC Sport. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  4. "Zheng Shuyin's behaviour was 'disrespectful' – GB performance director Hall". County Times.
  5. Staniforth, Mark. "'I wouldn't change it for the world': Bianca Walkden wins third world taekwondo title after opponent is disqualified". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 18 May 2019.


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