20.6.2022 / Sofia Open

Sonkals in Sofia

After more than a decade, the competition in the Bulgarian capital was renewed under its original name, the Sofia Open. For many years the Bulgarian Taekwon-Do ITF Federation has been organizing the international competition Bulgaria Open, where the organizing cities of Plovdiv and Blagoevgrad alternate.

Sonkal went by air to this competition with 8 competitors and it was all about gaining valuable experience. Unfortunately, the weather was not in our favour throughout our stay - the atypically heavy rain took only very short breaks and therefore we could not even use our free time to explore the historical sights of the Bulgarian capital.

The starting field consisted of competitors from Bulgaria, Greece, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Northern Macedonia, Serbia and Italy. The competition took place on four rings with an electronic system. Unfortunately, the way patterns were evaluated was very much influenced by almost 100% local judges and our style of performing patterns was not evaluated as correct, even though our opponents practiced with a considerable number of very crucial mistakes. Nevertheless, a very interesting experience and still gaining two gold medals and other second and third places.

Hubert Skála and Tereza Simandlová won gold medals in sparring. Ondra Faltin was prevented from a better place by a medical indisposition and an injury from one of the matches. A great benefit for us was the group system in sparring, where our competitors could gain numerous foreign experiences.

Check out our full results HERE.

We have just added the last set with 148 photos. You can view a total of 598 photos. Tomorrow a second edit, this time focused on the performance of sonkal.

And also check out the video prepared by Alex Mach. More focusing on sonkal members will follow this week.