1.1.2020 / 9th North-West Cup1 coment

Adventure in Moscow

On Saturday, December 14th at 7 o'clock in the morning, our Sonkal team including Ondra, Vláďa, Stepan, Kája, Ondráš, Tea, Lea and me, met on Terminal 1 near Costa Coffee. Our flight left without any delays. After we successfully changed our seats and everyone was happy with who's sitting next to them, our two and half hour flight to Moscow started, most of our competitors fell asleep as soon as we took off. Around one o'clock in the afternoon (local time in Moscow) we arrived to the Sheremetyevo International Airport and then we moved to the hotel, where we did a weight check and also put our bags to rooms. Luckily everyone had at least half a kilo under their category.

Right after the weight check we met Boris and he gave to all of us a metro cards and we went to the city centre together. Before we headed to the centre, we made a short traditional stop in Burger King for an unhealthy lunch, where everyone including the ones who didn't eat because of the weight categories ate a lot and then we finally travelled deeper to the Moscow. On Arbat Street which was decorated with Christmas lights we arrived to Kremlin and Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We continued to the Red Square, which didn't disappoint us with Christmas decorations and crowds of tourists. In the end of the Red Square was Saint Basil's Cathedral and we made loads of photos and selfies. Then Boris choose one of the streets where the lights were hung even above the street and I have to admit they are enjoying decorating streets a lot. We moved back to the hotel and all the competitors including me went to their rooms, had a quick shower and we went to bed early to refresh and have enough energy for a competition.

In the morning we woke up to the snowy morning and we all were surprised because the temperatures were under the zero, and a big part of us had thin footwear and definitely not to a snowy weather, but snow melt soon and our concerns passed soon.

At eleven o'clock we had a meet up at the reception and we went for an early lunch before the competition to the Burger King again. At twelve we moved to the hall and the competition officially started. Our first competitors on stage were twins Lea and Tea. First of them lost in a first match in patterns and second one won first match but lost second one and it was quite similar in sparring for both of them. I was first who competed in patterns, but sadly I lost with a Korean guy from Russia, who could be in a Russian national team, because his patterns were pretty good. Next was Hubert on a different ring, who end up without a medal. Ondráš who competed in a same category as me, lost in final with a same guy I lost with before. Meanwhile Kája started to compete on a different ring, but her final match end up in a benefit for the Russian girl. So, after pattern categories we have first medals – two second places. After we finished patterns, we madly started to be called on rings for our sparring categories. Hubert didn't have time to change from his mode for patterns to a sparring mode and he was being called on a ring. In a second match he fought against the Russian guy with more experiences than Hubert and before he was able to adapt to the opponent's style of fighting it was end of the match and even it was so close Hubert lost but it was enough for a nice third place. Then was Kája's turn, she had two girls in her category -58kg. None of her opponents was as good as Kája and that's why she won a gold medal in this category. And that's not all for her, Kája was in an exhibition fight in category -52kg, because there was only one Russian girl and her coach wanted her to fight with a Czech competitor to show everyone the best from Czech and Russia. Kája showed again her experiences from national competitions and won a second gold medal from sparring. Then me, I had two matches. In first one I fought against the guy with red and black belt and because of loads of experiences from national competitions and championships I had whole fight under control. Second fight was with a guy from Russian national team, with who I fought before on a European championship in Rimini. It was draw for a most of the time, we both tried to have whole fight under control and no one made a silly mistake. Because it was draw even on the end of the match we fought in a playoff. Draw again and we had to do a golden point. I practiced a lot with guys from national team techniques for this, my first technique was a yopcha on ribs and luckily, I hit ribs under the arm of my opponent. So, another gold medal for Sonkal. Meanwhile I was fighting on my ring, Ondráš had his first and sadly last fight. Whole fight was Ondráš winning and had one or two points more than his opponent, his fight was full of emotions, nerves and stress, but sadly in the last second of the fight Ondráš fell on a ground and his opponent kicked him in a head and referees gave him points, so this changed the score and he lost because of a silly decision of Russian referees.

Competition started to end, last medals were given and Kája received a cup for a best junior female of the competition.

We moved back to the hotel, put our stuff to the rooms and headed to the near Vegas shopping centre for a dinner and to take a look on the souvenirs. Then we went back to the hotel and because of the tiredness we fell asleep as we lied to our beds and woke up in the morning before the breakfast. We ate a big breakfast and about half past nine we went to Moscow again. We saw the same stuff as on Saturday but in a daylight and I have to admit it was even prettier. We stopped for a coffee in one of the local coffee shops and Ondra bought to everyone a hot cup of a tasty coffee. After eleven o'clock we came back to the hotel and at twelve we travelled back to the airport where we arrived in a five-hour advance. In the end our flight was delayed for a two and half hour, so we had a lunch in KFC and then we watched funny videos on YouTube and we made laugh even Vláďa. When we could finally enter the plane, we had a two and half hour long flight back to the Prague, where we arrived at nine o'clock in the evening. After like a half hour we finally receive our bags, Ondra and Vláďa talked to us about the competition and thanked us for a good representation of our club. And we are happy to be a part of a really good club like this and because of Ondra we were able to travel to Russia and earn so much experiences.

Congratulations to everyone who earn medals, and who didn't earn a medal at least had loads of experiences, which they can use on next competitions.

Article made by:
Jan Veškrna and Karolína Chmelíková