Wessex TKD recently attended the Southern Taekwondo Championships at Bournemouth with a team of 15 players competing in the Peewee, Cadet, Junior and Senior categories. All players performed very well and Wessex came second to an extremely large LTA team also beating BTS into third place.
In the peewee category, Reece Chan put in an excellent performance in his first fight to come away a 7 points to 0 winner, unfortunately his second bout didn’t go so well with the scores being reversed. Chloe Chan was up next and came up against a slightly stronger opponent and went down by 1 point to 7, however, she came away with a bronze medal.
Ellie Lister was competing in her first tournament and put in an excellent performance to win 2-0 in her semi-final. She over came a fit of nerves before her final and held her opponent to a 1-1 score at the end of two rounds, eventually losing by a Golden Point to take the silver medal.
Connor Farrant took the bronze medal in his category which saw his opponent narrowly go into the final by 2 points to 1. Finally, in her last fight as a peewee Counteney Welch easily won her semi-final 5-0 and was unlucky in the final to go down by 2 points to 9 due to an injury picked up in the first fight however she showed true determination as she would not let her coach stop the bought and took a well deserved silver medal.
Then came the turn of the cadets, Chelsea Welch came out ahead in her semi-final by 3 points to 1 and took gold in her final winning by 2 points to 0 against the player from beat both players that finished ahead of her at the National Championships last year.
Wessex had two players in the cadet female -40kg category. First up was Abi Gray whose opponent held her to 3 points all at the end of two rounds with Abi coming out on top on the Golden Point. Next up was Ellie Gilham against an opponent from BTS. After going in 6-0 up at the end of the first round Ellie came out the winner by 6 points to 4. This set up an all Wessex final which Ellie won by 5 points to 4 giving her the gold medal and Abi the silver.
In the afternoon it was the turn of the juniors and seniors to take to the ring. In only her second tournament as a junior, Melissa Lamb put in a good performance against old rival Stacey Jamison to take the gold medal by 9 points to 6.
Yet again, Lottie Roberts seemed to be fighting against the corner judges as well as her opponents but came through 4-2 in her semi-final and 3-2 in her final to take the gold medal. Another solid performance from Kayleigh Broom saw her take her semi-final by 5 points to 3 and her final by 5 points to 2 to give Wessex another gold medal.
Ryan Lester, fighting juniors for the first time, was unlucky to have the referee stop his final when he was only 2 points down as, after a kick to the nose, he didn’t put his guard up by the end of the statutory 8 count despite the fact the he was ready to continue. However, he came away with a consolation silver medal.
Arkan Byati finished off his opponents in the manner we have come to expect, taking his semi-final 7-0 and in the final, when leading by 6 points to 0, he caught his opponent on the chin causing him to kiss the mat! This gave Arkan a well deserved gold medal.
In the senior category Wayne Nelson was unlucky to go down by 4 points to 6. However, it was decided that Cedric Chan had the fight of the day. After easily winning his semi-final by 13 points to 6 he came up against an ex-Wessex player in the final and despite giving away some 15 years in age we witnessed a thrilling fight with his opponent narrowly taking gold by 12 points to 10, giving Cedric an extremely hard fought silver medal.
All in all it was a very successful day for Wessex which was rounded off by an enjoyable meal at the local Toby restaurant. The team is now looking forward to the Austrian Open where a small team will compete and hopefully bring home some medals.
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