TOKYO—Unknown to many, there’s a 20th Filipino athlete who is in these Tokyo Olympics. The thing is, she’s competing for Team New Zealand.
Andrea Anacan is New Zealand’s sole qualifier in karate’s kata, one of four sports which are making their Olympic debut here.
“My mom (Mary Ann) and dad (Illya) wanted me to do a co-curricular activity which was different from academics,” Anakan, 30, said. “So my mom gave me a choice between ballet or karate.”
“My family is really high on security – I had to memorize my phone number and memorize my address, no talking to strangers, don’t accept anything from strange people, that sort of thing,” she told the Games official website.
“So when she asked me, would you like to do ballet or karate, I said karate, because if I ever get kidnapped, what am I going to do?” she told an online interview with a laugh.
Anacan and her family moved to New Zealand when she was 12. Before moving to a new country, she joined the Association for the Advancement of Karate-do, an organization that unified the various dojos in the country.
“When she was training with us at AAK, she was very hardworking,” revealed Sensei Chino Veguillas, a senior AAK instructor and sport/karatedo coach at La Salle Santiago Zobel and St. Paul and a many-time national karate team member.
“She was one of the smallest in the group, but that didn’t stop her from competing and winning,” he said. “And she was always at training and very passionate and I can say very intense for a karateka of her age.”
In New Zealand, Anakan linked up with Sensei Johnny Ling, who further cultivated her karate skills to Olympic levels, asking her to move to kata when she was 14.
“’f you don’t grow any taller in a year, you’ll stop competing in kumite and do kata,’” I remember my sensei telling me. “Because he told me that I can’t reach my opponents when I’m fighting and they’re so much taller than me and with a longer reach.”
Anacan admitted she didn’t grow any taller at 4-foot-11.
Anacan placed seventh at the 2018 Karate World Championships and has worked on making the New Zealand Olympic team since. On July 6, she received news that changed her life forever—she was finally headed to Tokyo.
“I didn’t ever dream of going to the Olympics when I started this sport, it’s been a bit of a surprise to be honest,” she said. There’s been a lot of hard work, I can’t quantify the hours that me and my sensei have put in, we never could have imagined this but I couldn’t be more excited.”
“We’re are proud of her even if she is representing New Zealand,” Veguillas said. “Her blood and roots will always be Filipino.”
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