22.3.2017 / Czech Open (youth, juniors & adults) - info pack

The International Tournament in Nymburk with Five Hundred Participants

I dare say that the name Czech Open took roots in minds of those who are practising Taekwon-Do ITF, at least in Czech Republic, and it became known to them as much the capital city of their land. For Czech Open held in Nymburk is really international competition that every year greets numbers of participants from different places of the world.
Their number grows up every year and this year we could count over 500 participants, which was truly praiseworthy.

The beginning of the contest was on Friday 17th of March 2017 when all of the contestants had to sign up and be weighed. Unlike previous years, this time the group of senior contestants competed on Saturday together with pupil group. The junior group competed on Sunday so they could arrived be weighed on Saturday instead of Friday evening.

Because of the great number of participants, it was impossible to accommodate everybody at the hotel of sport hall. The priority of this accommodation had the foreign schools so one part of our school had to move to another place in Nymburk. Only those who were in the role of referees got the rooms in sport hall. But when the dinner time had come, we found out there were some troubles with dinner chits for referees who were umpiring one day only. I did not find out what exactly happened but this problem was solved very soon with no troubles and all of us got the chits and could afford delicious dinner.

The rest of the evening had the usual spirit. We greeted our contestants and talked about a few things. After that the time was up to move to beds and prepare ourselves for the next day of competition.

On Saturday all of contestants and referees had to be in the competition hall at 8:00 a.m. and the opening ceremony was planned at 8:30 a.m. But, due to some technical problems, the ceremony was postponed for about an hour. The competition began with the patterns of pupil group followed by sparring and then special techniques. After lunch the contest went on with the senior group in the same way as was the previous one, only extended of the power breaking discipline.

Because of the delayed beginning everybody was expecting the end of the contest day in the late evening hours. But almost nobody noticed that there was one ring more in the hall than usual. And, thanks to this, the competition sped up and the Saturday joust ended before 7 o´clock p.m. Then everyone went to dinner and after that most of them moved to their chambers or went to bar for refreshment and socialisation. But those who were about to compete on Sunday had to went to their beds.

The second day of the competition belonged to the junior group which was the largest. Most of the seniors took the roles of referees who assessed the performances of the younger group. Seeing the sparring matches, many of us were struck dumb, for the contestants in this group were full of energy and, considering the speed of the contestants, some of those fights were really wild. Most of us only remembered those times when we were able to move so quickly as well.

The large number of the participants caused that the competition ended at about 4 o´clock p.m. Nonetheless, it was fabulous time for final celebration and announcing the winners of categories and also the absolute winners of the tournament and, of course, the most successful schools. Thanks to this early end, everyone got home in good time, speaking about the schools of Czech Republic.

I was really satisfied with the Czech Open this year regarding the quality of participants, fights and especially the organization of the whole competition.

I am looking forward to seeing you next year.