Halewood Tae Kwon-Do Club’s recently were successfull at the
2013 GTI English Championships, held in Cheltenham on 17th
February. They had 14 team members taking
part in the tournament, and they came back with 16 trophies and medals - 4 gold,
7 silver and 5 bronze.
Competitors
were able to enter several events, including patterns (to assess technical
ability); point-stop sparring, a bout favouring the fighter who scores first;
and continuous sparring, favouring the fighter scoring the most points in a
non-stop bout.
8-year-old
Olivia Connolly-Dixon was competing for the first time, but managed to overcome
her nerves to achieve a fantastic result - two silver medals in patterns and
point-stop sparring.
Little
Harvey Banks, who was celebrating his 7th birthday, made his mark in the boys’
peewee point-stop sparring division, winning a silver medal. Big sister Jessica Banks (13) and team mate
Lauren Butler (10) fought hard in the red belt girls continuous sparring event,
each battling against older and stronger opponents to achieve bronze
medals.
8-year-old
Callum Edwards had moved up to the boys’ blue belt division for the first time.
However, he was unfazed; and took a silver medal in continuous sparring.
Halewood’s
ladies did particularly well, with four becoming English Champions. Nicole Murphy (18) won gold in green belt
point-stop sparring as well as a bronze in patterns. Sian Tunstall (27) took the top spot in the
red belt patterns event, plus a bronze in point-stop sparring.
Team
mates Lucy Sanders (30) and Stef Davies (30) dominated the ladies’ black belt
sparring divisions, facing each other in the finals of both point-stop and
continuous sparring events. Both fights
were close, and ended with one win each – Lucy taking the continuous sparring
and Stef taking the point-stop sparring crown.
Both ladies also took medals in the patterns event, with Stef achieving
silver and Lucy taking bronze.
Instructor
Chris Davies (28) was extremely proud of his team, and praised their “fighting
spirit,” as well as the outstanding level of
support
they received on the day from friends and family.
This
tournament was a great start to the year for the club, which will be looking to
achieve more competition victories throughout the year.
Halewood Tae Kwon-Do classes are held four times per week at Halewood
Centre for Learning. Further details can be found on the website: www.halewoodtaekwondo.com. I have attached a photo of our gold medal-winning ladies, as well as
one of our junior team. Please let me know if you would like any further
details.
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