Six gold medals and being crowned national champions for the sixth year running made the English Tae Kwon-Do Championships a memorable one for the Exeter Schools of Tae Kwon-Do. The 24 Exeter students, comprising juniors, teenagers and adults, won 20 medals and amassed 38 points, one more than Thames Valley.
More than 500 competitors from 50 tae kwon-do schools and nine different associations were in action at the Riverside Leisure Centre. They came from India, Poland, Uganda and Croatia, as well as across Britain.
Exeter was chosen to host the event this year to acknowledge the 10th anniversary of the foundation of the Exeter Schools by senior instructor Philip Taverner, who is a fourth degree black belt. It was fitting, therefore, that two of the best performances came from Exeter students - 15-year-old yellow belt Harriet Martin and 13-year-old red belt James Clay, who both won medals after stepping up a class.
Harriet's yellow belt sparring competition was cancelled because of a lack of entries so she entered blue and red belt against girls with far more experience than herself.
In her first round, Harriet came up against a blue belt, but sparred aggressively and was undaunted by her opponents' greater experience and range of techniques. The judges scored the bout as a draw which meant that it had to go to extra-time. At the end of extra-time, the judges tied the event again forcing the round to a sudden death with the first competitor to score a point winning which Harriet duly did.
In the second round the same thing happened, Harriet beating a blue belt in sudden death to put herself into the final.
There she lost to a 17-year-old red belt who is about to take her black belt grading leaving Harriet with a well-earned silver medal to go with the gold she won in 13 to 17-year-olds yellow belt patterns.
James competed in the 13-17 age group for the first time and was not expecting to repeat his previous competition success when he had been in the under-13 age group. However, in the sparring competition he claimed the gold medal after several hard fought rounds against boys older and bigger than himself.
Exeter's other gold medals came from Paul Hutchings, Jenny Jacobs and Greg Bagwell in sparring and Zain Hussain in patterns. Hutchings, 21, and current member of the England first dan team, won the men's middleweight black belt sparring competition. He won bronze medals in the Junior World Championships in India 1998 and bronze and gold at the 2002 European Championships.Jacobs, 26, also a member of the England first dan team, collected the women's middleweight black belt sparring gold as well as silver in the black belts patterns. She also competed at last year's European Championships.Bagwell, 21, a red belt, won his first sparring gold in the men's heavyweight coloured belts sparring along with a bronze in the patterns.
Exeter Schools of Tae Kwon-Do other Exeter medallist were: Timothy Walker, bronze sparring; Adelaida Osborne, bronze pattern, silver sparring; Andrew Merrick, silver pattern, bronze sparring; Adam Gallen, silver pattern; Jushua Sussex, bronze sparring; Lewis Guppy, bronze pattern; Becky Summers, silver patterns; Kate Bonner, bronze pattern, bronze sparring.
At the closing ceremony, 15-year-old Exeter member Kevin Wolinski presented Taverner with an engraved crystal ball, on behalf his students, thanking him for 10 years of instruction.
Exeter-based Swift tae kwon-do students won three gold medals at the IKBKFO Open mixed martial arts tournament in Oxford.
Second degree black belt Leroy Venn, 14, won his sixth championship in a row and was declared grand slam champion.
Green tag Kirsty Sheath, 12, competing in her first open tournament, won the under 4ft 10ins category, beating a male Kung Fu black belt in the final. And red tag Nikita Venn, 15, won the girls' over 5ft 4ins category to take her tally to five gold, two silver and two bronze medals in just one year.Swift tournament trophies, Gold: Lee Sills (2), Tom Spencer, Nikita Venn, Jocie Bartlett, Sam Garnsworthy Silver: Abbie Phillips, Lauren Pearce, Craig Gavin, Kirsty Sheath, Nikita Venn, Lee Sills Bronze: George Bartlett, Jack Gidley, Nikita Venn, Katie John.
Source: http://www.thisisexeter.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=101939&command=displayContent&sourceNode=99872&contentPK=4418235.
