Celtic Cup 2009 - Cork - FULL REPORT
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Monday, November 16, 2009Congratulations to everyone who competed, officiated, coached and supported at the Celtic Cup in Cork over the weekend. The GTUK represented themselves well and brought back a good haul of medals.
On behalf of the GTUK we would like to extend warmest thanks to Master Dalton and his team - the tournament was well run and the atmosphere friendly in all respects. It is fantastic to be able to go to these Open events and meet up with our Taekwon-Do friends from all over the world and for politics to not be anywhere in sight.
Celtic Cup 2009
The weekend of November 14th & 15th saw a contingent from the GTUK travel to Cork, Eire to the Celtic Cup, an open competition hosted by Master Dalton’s group the IUTF.
The GTUK were heading over to Cork at varying times with some people going to indulge in some sightseeing a few days before and others travelling very early on Saturday morning (getting up at 3 o’clock on Saturday morning should be made illegal). The weather was somewhat blustery for some, making the flights an interesting experience 30 000ft above the Irish Sea but on arrival to the beautiful city of Cork that was soon forgotten.
As the competitors began arriving at the Neptune Stadium there was a definite buzz of excitement in the air – there were familiar faces from around the world, met at international tournaments over the years and so a great many long overdue ‘hello and how are you’s’ were exchanged. There were groups of competitors from Ireland, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Italy, PUMA, Scotland, and England. This being a tournament there was also the usual tension in the air as competitors look around, sizing the opposition up and trying to figure out who would be in each category. The Stadium was set up by Master Dalton’s hard working team and 5 black belt rings were soon underway after bowing in to the visiting Master Harry and Master Dalton’s welcoming speech.
Patterns were first and the standard was very high in all categories. The format of the patterns section of the competition was different to the way the GTUK run it and for those who haven’t experienced an international competition pay attention!! Competitors perform their patterns and these are then marked out of 10 by the judges at the table. The judges collate their scores to give an overall total for each pattern performance. The competitors don’t find out what score they are given and so after everyone in the category has performed the judges then announce the top 4 highest scoring patterns and those 4 are through to the semi-finals. In the semi’s competitors perform two patterns, one that they choose (optional) and one that the judges choose (designated). There is a pot with all the patterns up to the grade of the competitors which the designated pattern is drawn from so you could get anything from Chon-Ji up to the pattern of your grade (so it definitely pays to be well prepared!).
There were some fantastic performances from the GTUK in the patterns section, yielding medals for Mr. D. Holmes, Mr. Needle, Mr. Twelvetree, Miss Pearson, Miss Ross, Miss Brider, Mr. Baker, Miss Eden and Miss Mottershead. These are big achievements for which they and the GTUK should be very proud of.
International tournaments are worth going to for many reasons, one of which is to see some of the best Taekwon-Do practitioners perform to the highest standards and this tournament was no exception – the highlight being the ladies 4th degree patterns and the gold medallist Miss Silvia Farigu of Italy performing Moon-Moo – inspiring for anyone to watch.
After the patterns the hotly anticipated free sparring categories began. The standard across the board was high in all categories and each bout was hard fought with some brilliant performances once again providing inspiration for the GTUK competitors, as well as GTUK competitors putting in their own fantastic performances, showing that although we don’t often do it, we have a lot to shout about – come one GTUK – have confidence in your own abilities!
The GTUK’s performances were all individually good but particular praise must go to Karlton Davis who did extremely well in his category.
As the individual categories drew to a close the Celtic Cup competition began with the male, female and junior teams lining up on the squares to compete. The Cup was a definite high point of the day for spectators as the atmosphere was turned up to max with supporters of each team each trying to out – vocalise the other while the competitors sought to out spar one another on the rings. PUMA walked off eventual winners of the female category with some skilled performances, while the adult male competition saw Ireland and the Czech teams make the finals – to be played out at the start of the Sunday.
From a GTUK point of view it was disappointing that we had no male, female or junior teams to enter at the tournament. Tournament training has not been consistently well attended by enough people over the last year to make this possible which is hugely disappointing. This has got to be addressed. We have a wealth of talent within the association who just are not coming to tournament training sessions. The opportunity to represent the association in an international team event is a huge one – the experience you gain from it is unrivalled. I don’t understand the seeming lack of appeal of being on the squad and team seems to hold – once again – “Come on GTUK!”
The Sunday of the tournament kicked off with the exhilarating final of the men’s team competition between the Czech Republic and the Irish team. The Czech’s shot into a 2 – 0 lead that looked unassailable. But the Irish weren’t down and out. The next two bouts saw the tie being drawn level and it all came down to the last competitor from each team. The pressure was huge but the atmosphere in the hall was bigger – it was awesome. The spar seemed to swing from blue to red and the result was definitely close but the Irish team came out on top with a 3 – 2 victory, coming from 2 – 0 behind.
That must have been an inspiration for the colour belts as they kicked off their tournament and continued the successes of the previous day with 3 medals coming in, 2 from Mr. Sumners’ students Jake Hilton and Connor Matthews from Gloucester and a bronze in sparring for Colin Brooks from Wellingborough.
The day drew to a close and Master Dalton thanked the competitors and officials for all their help and held a quick debrief to see what went well and what might be improved upon for next year’s event.
Congratulations to everyone who competed – the most difficult thing to do is to put yourself forward to compete, if you win a medal that’s a bonus!
I’ve said it already but I’ll say it again; it is both refreshing and rewarding to be able to attend an open event such as this one where politics is nowhere in sight. The benefits of getting together with likeminded Taekwon-Do practitioners to compete or train in the martial art that we all love far outweigh the sometimes petty political problems that seem to dog Taekwon-Do wherever it goes.
The realist in me knows it won’t be as simple as “Why can’t we all just train Taekwon-Do” but the optimist in me asks “Why can’t it be?”
Phil Miller
GTUK Press Officer
Medal list:
Patterns:
Male 4th degree - D. Holmes – bronze
Male 3rd degree – S. Needle – bronze
Male 2nd degree – D. Twelvetree - silver
– L. Baker - bronze
Female 2nd degree – N. Pearson – gold
- A. Ross – bronze
Female Under12 BB - I. Brider – gold
- R. Mottershead - bronze
Female 15 – 17yrs – L. Eden – gold
Sparring:
Female BB up to 64kg – A. Webb – bronze
Male BB up to 71kg – C. Davis – bronze
Female Junior BB up to 53kg – L. Eden – bronze
Male Junior BB over 40kg – M. Mottershead – silver
Male BB open weight – P. Mottershead
Male Junior Green Belt 12 years – J. Hilton – gold
Male 16 -18yrs Red belt – C. Matthews – bronze
Adult male red tag – C. Brooks - bronze