29.5.2018 / Sonkal Open

Sonkal Open 2018 - What was it about?

Innovating, stressful, hot, funny, numerous, inspiring and mostly bumper – that´s how we can characterize Sonkal Open taking place this year.
Let´s start from the end: Bumper – we break records every year and this year was no exception. Last year 279 contestants
were increased in 295. And it´s not just about numbers but also new teams – Nomo Lišov, Opava and from abroad TK Forma from Croatia and North-West, school of Moscow.

Inspiring – definitely in performance of the youngest taekwondists who were so determined to win their pattern contests and greedy for first contest experience. Especially yellow belts of younger and older pupils were in the biggest group. But the winner could be just only one…

Numerous – not just competitors but even referees were in large amount as well as parents, the most devoted spectators. Great number of contestants was in each category. Victory of pattern competition meant having passed large number of matches.

Funny – for sure. Competitors had a lot of fun especially out of their contests because they were often cornered by Honza Horvát who asked them curious question. I have to say, by my point of view, everybody had great fun with him and pleasant atmosphere radiated from their faces. You watch our videos of Sonkal Open on our website. They should promote not only Sonkal Open but also awesome family of Taekwondists who meet at tournaments.

Hot – who did not sit in conditioned room without windows on Saturday morning, he/she has to be sure that basketball in Petřiny hall was really hot. Still no one regretted to spend their sunny day there.

Stressful – as the chief organizer and director of the whole tournament I am under big pressure. Still when I saw what time the contest ended I finally said – it was worth it!!! Stressful was also delivery of beautiful medals from Polish manufacturer nearly 12 hours before the opening ceremony.

Innovating – there were lots of novelties this year – dividing not only pupils but also juniors to younger and older groups, original medals that were praised a lot, but especially digitalization of whole competition system. Still we have a lot of work to do – mainly small mistakes that we did not discover during planning and also details that the very contest brought about. I expected some troubles caused by flags absent from referees´ hands but no one had a problem with that and everybody get used to this change.

What else to say? Especially mention those who won the most successful individual goblets and gained a voucher of Hayashi company (www.hayashi.cz):

- Younger female pupil – Karolína Chmelíková, Třeboň
- Younger male pupii – Michal Hejný, Milovice
- Older female pupil – Nikola Kaprálová, Nomo
- Older male pupil – Ondřej Faltin, Sonkal
- Younger female junior – Veronika Rožboudová, Třeboň
- Younger male junior – Jan Veškorna, Sonkal
- Older female junior – Eva Názlerová, Panter
- Older male junior – Herbert Kindl, Sonkal
- Female senior – Martina Kopecká, Silla
- Male senior – Filip Gavlas, Frýdek-Místek

Placings of schools follows:
1st Sonkal 13 8 7
2nd Třeboň 8 5 1
3rd GBHS 5 1 4

This year was Sonkal Open financially supported by municipality of Prague in which participated general secretary of our federation ing. Tomáš Komrska. Sonkal Open 2018 was held under financial support of capital city of Prague and financial and material support of Czech Federation of Taekwon-Do ITF. Great thanks belong to both of them not only from organizing committee but also from all competitors and referees.

We thank Mr. Miroslav Sobotka and his company Hayashi.cz for vouchers for the most successful individual competitors.

We look forward to seeing you in December at Devils Cup and next year at Sonkal Open again.

Ondřej Vrábel