C.J. Nickolas hardly looks like one of the most lethal fighters in the world. He’s wearing baggy jeans covered in large colorful patches with pink socks and carrying a yellow Pikachu backpack. His brilliant smile illuminates like the New York City skyline behind him.
And yet there he is, at 22, the U.S.’ best chance at a gold medal at the Paris Olympic Games in taekwondo, a Korean martial art in which fighters use mostly their feet and hands.
He arrives in the evening, before sunset, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza after a full day of media obligations, but, lean and 6-foot-1, he is a tower of energy. He readily switches into his U.S. fight gear to display his signature — and devastating — soaring midair double kick, a maneuver that delivers a blow to his opponent while he is in flight and a second strike as his body is contorted and suspended in air, parallel to the ground.
He displays this dexterous maneuver and others all with a smile and a youthful buoyancy because he is not in competition. In a match, Nickolas, the No. 2 fighter in the world in his weight class, sheds his lighthearted nature and transitions into a focused and violent attacker.
“He becomes this other person in the ring,” said Denise Nickolas, his mother, who introduced him to the sport when he was 3. “It’s nothing like who he is.”
Nickolas won gold at the Pan American Games last year and the silver medal at the 2023 World Championships at 80 kilograms, or 176 pounds, the first U.S. medal in that event since 2009. He bolted to No. 2 in the world rankings in January, making him eligible for the Olympics. It was the manifestation of a dream that was conceived when he pleaded with his mother to enroll him in karate classes after he watched the Power Rangers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on television as a kid.
“My mom was smart. She looked up combat sports for a kid and found martial arts that are in the Olympics, where you could build a career,” he said. “And she found this random taekwondo school and put me in it.”
Denise Nickolas enrolled, too, and became a black belt before she retired a few years ago. For years, she has watched her son, at first with fear, but mostly with admiration. The thing is, it was not just her son’s success in competition that has made her proud.
“I am grateful for C.J.’s success. But my best moments with him and taekwondo are not when he’s on the stand celebrating victories,” Denise Nickolas, 62, said.
From early on, a young C.J. displayed a heart and humanity that defied his age. When he was competing in a tournament at 9 or 10, with another match to go, he had already advanced to a national competition. But he wanted one of his teammates to join him. So he went into the stands and asked his mother whether he could forfeit his last match, which would allow his teammate and friend to qualify for the national tournament.
“And so he bowed out,” she recalled. “It was shocking that he came up with that gesture on his own, in that moment, at that age.”
On another occasion, when he was about 17, one of his teammates sobbed after she lost a gold medal match. His mother watched as her son comforted her and then took off the gold medal he had won and exchanged it for her silver medal.
“That’s the heart of who he is,” she said.
When Nickolas badly hurts an opponent, “every single time I’ve seen him, as soon as the fight is over and people are trying to talk to him, he’s running to get ice for that person and he’ll sit there with them.”
Another time, after a knockout victory, he was not allowed in the back of the venue to check on the opponent’s well-being. “So he came to me and said, ‘Can you please go check on him, because I don’t think he has any family or friends here with him?’ And I did. That’s just him. So it makes you think: ‘Who even is this person when he’s in the ring?’ It really doesn’t match up to the person he is outside the ring.”
Nickolas transforms into a focused, intentional and driven fighter.
Jose Villalpando works for the Performance Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has traveled the world with Nickolas for the last several years. He has noticed the transformation, too.
“That dichotomy is funny to me, switching personalities like that,” he said. “He has great balance in his life, and I think that helps him move in different worlds with ease. He doesn’t let his true nature of being nice and kind get in the way of beating anyone in the world.”
Nickolas smiles at the mention of the paradox of his demeanor. “When you fight, you’re not living in a space of comfort,” he said. “There’s no feeling like it. And that’s good. You only see growth when you’re uncomfortable. And when you lose, you have to get back up and keep trying.”
Taekwondo is more popular outside the U.S., particularly in Korea and China and across Europe and South America. In those parts of the world, Nickolas is a star who draws media and attention from admirers wherever he goes. He handles the attention with grace, Villalpando said.
“He appreciates balance,” he said. “He knows that in order to be a great competitor, he needs to have a life outside of taekwondo. His way of doing that is being a joyful kid, being creative, listening to music, dancing. He has good morals, good everything. Amazingly, he just wants the best for others. And it shows in how he treats people.”
And yet, he’s no pushover. Nickolas said he gets an indescribable joy in “cracking,” or perfectly striking an opponent’s face so powerfully that he is diminished. “It’s like a baseball player hitting a home run,” he said.
He has been “cracked a couple of times,” he said, “and you learn quickly how to avoid it if you want to keep doing this.”
But the competitive part of the sport has not been the most exciting element for Nickolas, whose strengths are his quickness and his unique abilities to strike opponents from different, awkward angles — and his crafty defense.
“Travel has been the most rewarding part of his journey,” he said. “It’s fun that I have gotten to see so much of the world at this young age.” He has competed all over Europe, South America and Asia. “It’s a blessing to be able and take in culture from around the world.”
But this summer, he looks forward to coming home — with a gold medal. “I fully intend to do just that,” he said.
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