Shepparton’s Sammy Rachele to represent Australia at World Taekwondo Poomsee Champs

The 54-year-old is also nurturing the next generation of Goulburn Valley athletes as they aim to follow in his footsteps with seven of the city’s hot prospects having medalled at the 2026 ATV Moomba Festival in March.

Such is his standing on the national scene that Rachele has received the call-up to represent Australia at the World Taekwondo Poomsee Champs, which will take place in Chuncheon, South Korea later this year.

The event will take place from September 16 to 20, with the Shepparton stalwart to attend several domestic championship dates before he makes the 8,600km trip to East Asia in a couple of months’ time.

This set of events will see Rachele appear at the World Taekwondo Oceania President's Cup on June 19 in the Gold Coast in Queensland, before the Australian Open in the region on June 20.

“I'm in a good place at the moment doing martial arts and fitness full-time - I'm gonna give it a red-hot go,” he said, previewing the next few months of action.

“Not only for the younger people but for people that are my age, they just need to understand that movement is medicine!

“It’s not that I keep doing it winning the medals, I keep trying as hard as I can so these opportunities come up and I can get into the team.

“I’ve been to South Korea a couple of times, once for a competition, and it’s a wonderful place for Taekwondo - being the place where it’s from, it’s a great experience to go over there to do martial arts.”

Following on from this, the Shepp star will take part in the Oceania Championships on June 21 in Queensland.

His commitment to honing the talents of youngsters in his home region remains steadfast too, with four Para-Taekwondo athletes set to join him up in the Gold Coast as they look to continue their own development.

Shepparton boasts a wealth of talent in the discipline para-taekwondo, with Brendon Leeder, Allena Nigro, Annika Best and Brodie Fitzgerald all having come through the ranks at the Koryo Taekwondo Centre.

“There’s no better training than actually competing,” he said.

“Out of the four of them, I reckon they’re ranked high enough that they place high enough in this competition to get in the Para World Championships team, so it’ll be really good for them.”

National Performance Pathway training sessions will also form part of his preparations for the World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships, with four dates in the diary between June and September.

In terms of his own preparations, Rachele is confident that his four decades’ worth of experience will help to propel him to further success during the remainder of the year.

“After 40 years, I’m pretty good at preparing myself for international competition,” he said.

“I’ve got a Commonwealth gold medal from 2007 in India with the Australian team and so if I could get a World gold medal that would top it all off!”

Revealing what it would mean to him to bring the World gold back to Shepparton, Rachele acknowledged that it would be a “dream” come true.

“Of course, you train all these years and always dream of that,” he said.

“Unfortunately, I’ve got to an age now where the Olympics isn’t going to happen but they do these World Championships in age divisions - so if I can come home with a medal it would be pretty special.

“So, you hope and dream and I’ve got years left in me.

“My Grand Master is 85 and he still competes, so I’ve got 30 years left! If I don’t get it this year, every second year I’ll be going to the World Championships until I get that medal.”