3.8.2019 / 13th junior & 8th veteran World Championship1 coment

Experiences from first world championship of our veteran

The Taekwon-do ITF World Championships, this time for Veteran and Junior categories, was held from August 20 to August 26 in Minsk, Republic of Belarus. 600 participants from more than 50 countries meant great competition.
The Czech representation team dispatched 25 members, 4 veteran and 21 junior competitors.

From our school we had these nominations:
Karolína Chmelíková – sparring -60 kg, Junior female team
Jan Veškrna – sparring -60 kg, Junior male team
Jiří Faltin – Patterns I. Dan, sparring -90 kg, Veteran team

The departure was planned for Monday August 20 from Vaclav Havel airport. We arrived to Minsk at around 5 p.m.. Unfortunately the host didn’t assure enough buses and so our expedition had to wait for 3 hours at the airport and we arrived late for the registration. Even worse was the situation with weighing which we didn’t manage to do and had to wait for it till the next day. That was especially unpleasant for those starving competitors balancing on the edge of their weight limit.

So on Tuesday morning we headed off for weighing and then cheerily for breakfast. Because the competition didn’t start yet that day, we went for a short walk around the hotel and the sports hall and we also had an easy training focused mainly on patterns, both individual and in teams. Competitors nominated for t-ki tried also a few jumps on pads.

The competition started on Wednesday. Five rings for patterns and sparring and one ring for special techniques were built in the hall. The first representation’s member from Sonkal going to compete was Jirka Faltin in veteran category patterns I. Dan. He won the first match against a contestant from Spain but after that the competition was stopped for the day and the hall was prepared for the upcoming ceremonial opening. Several very nice artistic and sporting acts were performed and all the participating countries introduced themselves. The opening was quite well-done, we had only one reproach concerning the Czech flag being badly showed on the big screen.

The following days had all the same schedule - breakfast, set off for the hall, announcement of the results, competitions, lunch, competitions, announcement of the results, dinner, team meeting and sleep. Veteran competitors added to the program an evening ice cream and a walk around the city where they amused tourists and locals thanks to the bright colours of their national uniforms.

The next day an extra ring was added inside the hall for the championship to come closer to the time schedule. However, the organizers couldn’t manage it until the last day and every morning competitions from previous evening had to be finished.

Right on Thursday morning Jirka Faltin carried on in his pattern competition and he made it all the way to the finals where he tightly lost against a contestant from Kazakhstan and so get the silver medal. He won the same medal later that afternoon in veteran team patterns category after defeating teams from Scotland, Slovenia and Spain. He couldn’t beat only the team of Japanese representation and lost tightly to them again in the finals. Also Honza Veškrna had a chance to show off on tatami in Junior team patterns category but he lost the first match against the Japanese team. Korean competitors seized control over the Junior team patterns category with overall only two lost matches. In the afternoon started also the competitions in special techniques and sparring.

Honza Veškrna was the first one to compete in sparring. His sparring category was not easy and he lost to competitors from Kazakhstan and Belarus and managed to win only the last fight against a Polish representation. He didn’t qualify to go on from the group but he gained priceless skills. After that in the same weight category started also Kája Chmelíkova. She lost her first match against a fighter from Ukraine but then she defeated a contestant from Kazakhstan and Greece and qualified from the group’s first place. She carried on until the semifinals where she was stopped by a Korean competitor. So Kája brought home surprising but well deserved and very valuable bronze medal.

Honza and Kája also showed their best in the special techniques team category where they both performed the nominating technique for their team. They were both successful, Honza jumped the dollyo chagi with absolute certainty, so did Kája with her nopi chagi and so they assured nomination to the main competition for the team. And there the Czech school showed what they got in this discipline. The junior male team won the gold medal and the junior female team eventually end up on the second place after referees’ very contradictory decision in the final battle against the Korean team. In the finals Kája jumped again nopi chagi technique on elevated stand but the board didn’t deflect enough so the referee gave her only one point. The Korean competitor got full three points for the technique, however, she didn’t keep the right procedure. The referee didn’t change his mind even after Czech team objection and so the Czech girls were given silver medals with tears in their eyes.

Girls from the junior team also managed to fight all the way through to the semifinals in sparring where they lost to Ukraine team and so Kája got one more bronze medal from this discipline. The junior male team, whose member was Honza Veškrna, lost in the first round of sparring with strong Russian team and the same destiny met the veteran team as they lost, also due to injuries, to team from Argentina in the first round too.

After the end of the championship and summary of the results, the Czech Republic came in 10th in the countries’ ranking with 3 gold, 9 silver and 7 bronze medals.

We all had a great time at this championship and we brought home many unforgettable moments and valuable experience.

You can see the photos from the world championship here.