Today was the first ever GTI North West Open, and 8 competitors represented Bridgnorth Tae Kwon-Do. They had the most amazing day and bagged a whopping 17 medals between them! All of our competitors won at least one medal:
Harry, aged 7 (green belt) and at his second ever competition, was 4th for patterns and earned a bronze medal for his sparring. He also did a grand job of coaching his team mates!
Dylan, aged 10 has competed once before but only in the patterns division. Today, he sparred for the first time competitively – in the black belt division – having passed his 1st Dan grading only six days ago! The lack of experience showed in Dylan’s first fight but by the second fight Dylan was responding brilliantly to coaching and earned himself a bronze medal (just two points away from silver).
Tammy (green belt) won silver for patterns, bronze for sparring and also took part in a team event. The team was comprised of Tammy, Oliver (also a green belt) and Chloe (red belt). They won a silver medal each for their team pattern – beating a black belt team in the process!
In addition to her silver for team patterns, Chloe came fourth in individual patterns and won bronze for sparring!
Oliver added to his team patterns medal with a silver for sparring, winning two out of three fights convincingly.
Dean took silver in sparring in a very tough and close battle which tied twice. He also won bronze for patterns – his first patterns medal since becoming a black belt, so another goal achieved! In addition to this Dean, Luke and Jake were our black belt patterns team, and they won gold!
Luke added to his gold for team patterns with a silver for tag team sparring (in a mixed-club team he arranged at the event) and his first individual gold for sparring! He’s been working hard towards winning gold, and today has come home with two!
Lastly Jake won double gold, with his medal for team patterns and a very convincing gold for sparring. His first fight looked effortless and although the final sparring match was very intense, Jake won during extra time thanks to 3 points for a retreating back kick to the head!
Aubrey supported the team and also put a shift in by timekeeping and officiating!
We are extremely impressed and proud of every competitor and would also like to say thank you to Dave, Rob, Daniel and Aaron who have ‘subbed’ and supported the development of the team patterns for this competition.
The team worked brilliantly with support for each other all day long. As always THANK YOU for representing the club and for doing it so well!