It was the exact day, December 4, 2019. Taekwondo player Kajal Shrestha won gold at the 13th South Asian Games (SAG). At that moment, she could not hold back her tears. By the time the match was over, she was leading 50-14 against her Pakistani opponent. She took off her helmet. She shouted loudly. There was no lack of joy in the audience either. Kajal hugged her coach and carried the country's flag in the hall of the Nepal Taekwondo Academy in Satdobato.

and cried once again. After all, where was her journey easy? She had to struggle at home to play taekwondo. Later, she became the best player in South Asia in the under 46 kg weight category. The first gold she won was at the Nekos National Taekwondo Championship in 2013. The last was the gold at the National Games in 2022. In the meantime, she won medals in about three dozen national and international competitions, a third of which were gold medals.

She could have won more medals. But many years of playing had left her body as it once was. So in 2023, she decided to retire, after the World Taekwondo Championship held in Azerbaijan. Soon after, she had the opportunity to leave the sport and go elsewhere, but she did not. Instead, she changed roles and became a referee and coach. As the second half of her sports career progressed, Kajal began to achieve similar success, as she used to achieve when she was a player herself.

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Until 2019, she was almost anonymous. As her identity became more and more public, her stories became public, and many readers began to recognize her. Deepak Thapa, who used to write about social and political issues in Kathmandu Post, tried to write about Kajal after hearing about it. Well, it was not easy for him. He had written, ‘I wrote this story because of the pain Kajal felt after winning the gold medal in Taekwondo.’

Immediately after winning the gold medal in the SAG, she used to say about her life, ‘We were not rich, we were really poor.’ My father was working hard in the Gulf to support our family. That is why my father is always in my heart.’ Kajal’s family is actually middle-class. A decade ago, her family left Sindhupalchowk and came to Kathmandu. Kajal was the youngest in the family. She has a brother and a sister. For her, winning the South Asian gold was no less than a dream come true.

Moreover, this achievement was achieved at the age of 22, so Kajal's dream began to take a big shape. She says, 'While I was celebrating that gold, I had already dreamed of winning medals in the Asian Games, World Championships and Olympics.' But the day came in 2023 when her sporting life was at an end. The visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, proved to be her last as a player. The continuous play had worn her body out.

She started feeling pain in her arms and legs. In such a situation, she had no other option but to retire from sports. She says, 'I felt that I could not play anymore. My body was not allowing me to compete.' This was the end of my sports career, with this the dream of winning a medal in a big competition was shattered.' Even when her sports career ended, it was not easy for her to leave taekwondo. While talking to her near the door of Gongbu Taekwondo Dojang, she said, 'After that, I made another big decision, to stay in this sport.'

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The playing field of that dojang is ordinary. Its door opens into a small alley. There is a new mat, along with two pairs of kick bags, a few cones and kick pads. This is her taekwondo dojang. The days of the youngest international referee of Nepali taekwondo are spent like this these days. Saroj Tamang, a fifth-dan black belt, is at the forefront of helping her. Every day, she travels 20 kilometers from Jagati in Bhaktapur to reach there.

It is not difficult for her to navigate the path to Suryabinayak. And to reach her training ground, she also has to dodge the crowds of Kathmandu. When she reaches the dojang around 3 pm, she feels a little tired. Whenever she assumes the avatar of a trainer, her face returns to that calm, courageous and evergreen smile. She gets ready for training. Whenever she enters the dojang, she finds the enthusiasm of even the young players increasing.

A boy's father was inquiring about training with trainer Saroj. But the boy seemed very eager to hit the kick bag and pad. Kajal says, 'This boy has only joined the dojang this morning.' Immediately, after teaching him some simple techniques, she asks the boy to come early tomorrow morning. Whenever it is time for her students to come, Kajal's eyes are fixed on the door. You can see the happiness on her face as one student after another arrives. Some fathers bring their children on motorcycles. Some mothers walk their children there. Some mothers ask, 'When will the training end?' And the question is, won't their children get injured? Kajal's job is to answer all those questions calmly. She says, 'Come and pick up the children around 6 o'clock, you don't have to worry about anything. Right now, they are just being taught the basics.' Saying this reminds her of her old days.

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When she was studying at Saraswati Umami in Koteshwor, she was a good student. It was in class 8 when Kajal first heard about taekwondo. Some of her friends were about to learn taekwondo. She told her mother about it. Recalling those days, she says, ‘My mother said no at first.’ But was she just about to give up? What did she do to convince her mother? But all her efforts were unsuccessful, she cried, and stopped eating. Then her brother spoke in support of her sister. Her mother also felt compelled to say yes. The

began, training at the Koteshwor Taekwondo Dojang. ‘On the first day, I lost and got beaten up,’ says Kajal. ‘That day I returned home crying. But the next day I returned to training again, working even harder.’ This hard work did not take long to bear fruit. In 2014, she reached Taiwan, representing Nepal. The opportunity was the World Junior Taekwondo Championship. Now, in a way, Kajal's dream of the Asian Games and the Olympics is not dead.

The path has changed, she will participate in those big competitions as a referee or coach. Moreover, she has already become an officially recognized referee of World Taekwondo, and is also establishing herself as a coach. In 2018, she was a national-level referee. In December 2023, she participated in a referee seminar held in South Korea and passed there.

At that time, she was 26 years old. She became the youngest international referee from Nepal. Moreover, she is also the first Nepali woman to be a referee in the taekwondo disciplines of Gyarogi and Poomsae. In July 2025, she was declared the best referee at the Kukiwan World Taekwondo Hanmadang held in California, USA. In March of the same year, she was also selected as the best referee at the Oceana Taekwondo Championship held in Sydney, Australia. Just last month, she also played the role of a referee at the World Taekwondo Junior Championship held in Uzbekistan.

Kajal says, ‘When I played the role of a referee at the World Junior Championship, I remembered the old days. In 2014, I participated in the same competition as a teenager. Now I have become a referee. Time flies, you never know.’ If everything goes well, that day will not be far when she will play the role of a referee at the Asian Games and the Olympics. She feels that she did well at the World Taekwondo International Referee Selection and Training Camp held in Kazakhstan in January.

This is the opportunity that could open the way for referee selection for the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics in Los Angeles, USA. Whatever Kajal thinks, she has learned a lot while becoming a referee. She says, ‘When you are a player, you have to be a bit aggressive, but when you are a referee, you have to be calm. You cannot make mistakes in front of a referee. Otherwise, you will have to appear as a villain in someone’s story.’ Due to her love for taekwondo, she is now dedicating herself to this sport as a referee even though she is not a player.

She says, ‘If I get the opportunity to be a referee in the Olympics, it will be a great achievement. If I also get to be a coach, it will be even better.’

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Kajal remembers being a coach a few years ago. What happened is that when her SEE examination was over, she was living in Bhaktapur. ‘As soon as I completed 10th grade, I asked a teacher to teach taekwondo to the neighborhood kids. I did this job to earn some money, so that I wouldn’t have to ask anyone for money to go to the dojang in Koteshwor. I thought, you shouldn’t ask your mother for too much money. I still remember earning 2,000 rupees a month while teaching taekwondo at a school,’ she said.

She joined the Army Club in 2016. At that time, her monthly income had reached 20,000 to 25,000 rupees. ‘It made it very easy for me,’ she says. After becoming the best in her weight group and making it to the national team, things started getting better. She says, ‘As a player, I stopped halfway.’ But I want to share the skills I have with the new generation. I want them to become world champions and fly the flag of Nepal on the world stage.’

As a coach, she has also produced some talented players. She was a coach for Bagmati Province recently. Her team came third in the first Jhapa National Taekwondo Gyarogi and Poomsae Championship a few weeks ago. She says, ‘Taekwondo has its own charm. The whole world respects it.’ Kajal and Saroj do not only train young children. They also train teenagers from 6 am to 7 pm.