Jenna (Greene) Gonino spars with an opponent during an ACAT event at the Liberty Indoor Track Center last year. (Photo by Ted Allen)
Black belt who struck gold at first collegiate nationals going to Grand Prix Finals in Texas
9/15/2023 4:48:00 PM | Taekwondo
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Jenna (Greene) Gonino, a senior nursing student on Liberty’s taekwondo team, has her sights set on the USA Team Trials in January.
Jenna (Greene) Gonino, a senior black belt on Liberty University's taekwondo team, has proven herself an overcomer in a sport that conditions competitors to get back up after being knocked down.
Gonino has Olympic aspirations in the sport after placing second in her women's lightweight (62-kilogram) division at the July 7-10 U.S. National Championships in Jacksonville, Fla.
She will compete in the U.S. National Taekwondo Team Trials from Jan. 5-7, 2024, in Charlotte, N.C.
Gonino struck gold at the FISU America Games in Mexico last October.
"Winning the gold at the (National Collegiate Taekwondo Championships (NCTC) near Boston last year qualified me to go to FISU (America Games in Mexico), and then nationals this past summer qualified me for Team Trials," Gonino said.
Next Friday, she will compete in the Grand Prix Finals in Fort Worth, Texas.
"If I do well at that tournament, I will be seeded in the Team Trials," Gonino said. "I feel like it's a little too late for this Olympics, because it's next year (in Paris), but I would be a contender for the 2028 Olympics (in Los Angeles)."
Qualification to compete for Team USA hinges on world ranking points, with Olympians needing to be ranked in the top 20 in the world or No. 1 in their respective country to guarantee a spot on the team.
"If I were to win at Team Trials, then I would represent the U.S. at the 2024 Pan Am Games, which is a world championship," Gonino said. "Based on how you do in that is your world ranking and that's how you qualify for the Olympic team."
If she advances to the Olympic Trials, she would be the first Liberty student or alumnus to do so since Jonathan Healy, a former online student, qualified in 2016.
After training and competing since she was 9 in International Taekwondo Federation (ITF), which doesn't allow full-force kicks to the head or body, she won a gold medal in her first competition in a World Taekwondo (WT) event, the 2022 collegiate nationals.
Gonino lands a roundhouse kick to the back of her opponent in the ACAT home tournament.
"In ITF, you can hit to the head, but it has to be a light touch because if you knock someone out, you lose," Gonino said. "In this WT style, which is the style used in the Olympics, if you knock someone out, you win. ITF is full contact, but this is full contact as hard as you can go."
She noted that she and her teammates reserve full-force contact for competitions.
"When we're practicing against our teammates, we exert light touches because we don't want to injure one another, but when we're on the mat competing against other teams, it's full game," she added.
As she trains for competition, Gonino has also faced several health issues. She has resolved to battle through those obstacles in order to return to the form she was in when she competed in Mexico and again at the U.S. Open in March in Las Vegas, where she faced the No. 3-ranked woman in the world in her weight class.
"I was definitely at the top of my game there, and I was winning until I took a huge hit to the head from my opponent, who illegally held onto the strings on the back of my hogu (chest protector) and knocked me out," Gonino said. "That was a minor setback, but I'm getting back to that level. It is definitely a mental game (but) I've been training and hopefully will be able to make a strong appearance in Texas."
Gonino, who is pursuing her B.S. through the School of Nursing and wants to become a midwife, has found the sport of taekwondo to be character-building as well as stress-relieving.
"Starting out as a 9-year-old, I remember it just being fun," said Gonino, a native of Roanoke, Va. "It's still fun, of course, but it's a way to challenge yourself. Also, it's a break from school. It's a way to let go of stress."
The Flames and Lady Flames are gearing up for the first of two Atlantic Collegiate Alliance of Taekwondo (ACAT) events this semester, Oct. 28 at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, followed by an East Coast Triathlon Conference (ECTC) tournament at Cornell University the following weekend, Nov. 4-5.
"The Liberty tournaments that I'm going to with the rest of my team will be really great prep for the Team Trials," Gonino said. "I'm really looking forward to it, as well as the camaraderie I have with my team."
Head Coach Tom Childress anticipates taking the team's top 12 competitors in a variety of black and color belts to the NCTC Championships in April, which will be held on the West Coast this year, likely in California. Jenna Greene, from Roanoke, Va., married Cameron Gonino of Buchanan in July 2022.
On Monday night, Gonino and her teammates — including 17 other returnees and 15 newcomers — are looking forward to conducing the semi-annual women's self-defense class out of their Club Sports Olympic Training Facility behind CiCi's in Candlers Station, in the annex that formerly housed the Liberty Mountain Skate Park.
"It's nice to have a background in taekwondo and I enjoy the self-defense skills it provides as well," she said.
Gonino credits God, her parents, Childress, and her husband, Cameron Gonino ('18), who she married in July 2022, for helping her endure trials in pursuit of additional gold medals.
"My husband, my parents, and my coach are so supportive, and I'm just so thankful," she said, noting that Cameron graduated from the School of Aeronautics and is now a pilot with GoJet Airlines. "He's very supportive in everything, whether it is nursing or taekwondo. It's a wonderful sport and I'm thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to be a part of it ... because of how graciously He has blessed my life. If I had not trusted the Lord's guidance and the way He miraculously works everything out, I would not have any of my successes. I owe everything to Him. It's all for His glory."
By Ted Allen/Staff Writer Jenna was accompanied by her parents and husband, Cameron, at the FISU America Games in Mexico last October.
