Reaching high for the best for your child

This weekend Stevenage Taekwondo had five students enter the Bristol Open Taekwondo Festival from the Fairlands Taekwondo club, their first full contact fights in a knockout competition environment (and for three of them their first ever fights).  All fighters represented the club with excellent sportsmanship and superb efforts.  James Chapman our youngest fighter (8 years old) fought a great first fight, unfortunately losing in the closing seconds.  Tom Elmes (Year 6) fought in his division against a Welsh fighter and unfortunately didn't manage to find an opening to what would become an eventual finalist (Oliver Gibbs).

Mitchell Elmes (ex-Fairlands School) fought against a tough opponent with lots of local support but managed to easily beat him, stopping the fight, winning by point gap (7 points above his opponent) before the end of the second round.  He then went on to fight Oliver Gibbs in the semi-final but couldn't find a way to beat him either, but ending the day with a bronze medal.  Tom Jeffries (Year 5) fought in his opening round match and displayed some excellent technical ability, winning that match putting him through to a semi-final against teammate Alex Paul (also Year 5) who had a bye in the first round.  A close match was fought between the two teammates, with Tom edging Alex out at the end earning Alex a bronze medal, putting him through to face Oliver Gibbs.  Tom fought well in the final, getting caught with an illegal blow in the first round and having a kick to his opponents head in the second that should have scored, ended up losing 5-3.  Tom finished the day with the silver medal.

In other action at the weekend, one of our assistant coaches Eloise Tarry (16 years old) went up to the national academy to take part in an assessment for the national Taekwondo squad for Rio 2016.  This is a multi-stage process, 435 athletes applied for the programme, 235 were invited to the assessment of which 94 were girls, so already this was a great achievement.  Eloise did really well in the physical assessments, finishing either top in each test or within the top few (as the results weren't announced out loud for one of the tests).  The end of the assessment was a single fight under full Olympic rules and being watched by World Champion and twice-Olympian Sarah Stevenson, among others. Her fight was against a higher ranked 21 year old lady, but Eloise went on to win 12-11 after a Sudden Death 4th round.  A win in the fight does not guarantee entry to the squad, but performances are considered as a factor. Comments from the judges afterwards were all very positive, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for the next stage of the assessment for her.

If anyone would like to join Stevenage Taekwondo, either child or adult, please get in touch with the club's instructor Master Andy Jeffries on 07939 164853, or visit the club's website www.stevenagetaekwondo.co.uk.