Tae Kwon-Do Top Off Term One with Bronze in National Championships

On 5 December 2015, the Warwick Tae Kwon-Do Club participated in the Tae Kwon-Do University Championships held at De Montfort University, in Leicester. In total, 7 universities took part in the competition, fielding over 100 competitors all battling for gold. This year, our team had 24 members representing the club. Admirably, they fought their way to a total of 19 medals, including 10 golds, 4 silvers and 5 bronzes, earning them a commendable 3rd place at the competition. As usual, the top 3 winning positions were extremely competitive, requiring averages of 2.0, 1.9 and 1.8 medals per member respectively, showing just how well the team performed in an extremely competitive environment. Margins were razor thin; it was so close that the difference between the first and third placed teams amounted to only one gold medal. We are all very proud of our fighters and performers, many of whom had never participated in a competition before, yet managed to bring home some medals and cap off an amazing first term.

In the Yellow-Green belt category for patterns, our team managed to win every single medal available.

The competition day started with what we call patterns; a predetermined set routine of Tae Kwon-Do techniques performed in front of judges, as is typical of most competitions. In this event, Team Warwick managed to bring home 3 gold medals, with Sean Donner, Lakshika Wanni and Tu Quang Huy all outperforming their competition. After a valiant effort, Stephanie Windows won silver in her category, and Sado Nuuer wowed her way to a bronze medal. What is even more impressive is that in the Yellow-Green belt category for patterns, our team managed to win every single medal available, an amazing achievement in clearing out the category. All of the participants performed spectacularly in their patterns, moving the Club Captain Kieran Guffick to comment: “The competition was particularly fierce this year and everyone did well. It was encouraging to see lots of the beginners stealing the show.”

Next up, after the patterns were completed, the event moved on to sparring competitions. In basic terms, sparring is the name given to the fight between two people of similar skill level who compete to score points by punching or kicking certain areas of the body. In most cases, the critical points on the body are the chest and the head, with the head earning more points than the body as it is usually harder to hit. This particular sparring event involved a single round of 1 minute and 30 seconds, which can be tough for newcomers to the sport, but our lower and higher grades rose valiantly to the challenge. In total, Warwick Tae Kwon-Do won 11 medals, which can be broken down into 6 golds, 2 silvers and 3 bronzes, totalling more gold medals than silver and bronze combined!

The final event was destruction, which involves breaking boards of varying thickness with both hand and foot techniques. This is arguably the toughest event, as it requires no small amount of skill, technique and strength to break the boards with the correct strike or kick. Our team managed to secure a gold, a silver and a bronze medal in this event, in which the participant count was much lower, and the belt requirement much higher! Well done to all our higher grades who took part in this, they did a fantastic job!

As second year Green Tag belt Sean Donner said; “Unichamps is always a great competition because it welcomes newcomers with open arms, showing them both how a competition is run as well as a glimpse at the size of the taekwondo community”. It is safe to say that the results clearly have not betrayed this sentiment, and all our participants performed extremely well in high pressure circumstances. We hope you, the reader, will join us in congratulating everyone who took part, as they all did fantastically! This is an annual event, so we’re all excited for it to come around again. Roll on next year!