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British Open International: 1st & 2nd October 2011 Manchester
During the first weekend of October nearly 500 competitors from around the World descended to Manchester to compete at the 4th BTCB British Open. This high profile event, that has secured A-class status from ETU and World ranking status from WTF, is one of a list of events where British players can secure points towards a place in the UK National Team, if they can win a medal.
British players who wanted to take part had to first qualify by securing a top four spot at the British Championship. However, a small number of wild cards were available as well.
Only three players had qualified from Scotland. Including two junior players from the high performance and development programmes we now have in place for all talented youngsters within Scottish TKD. Nikos Jakubiak, National Performance Coach and Head Coach of Scotland’s National Team, attended the event to see first hand how two of our promising players, Marissa and Kristian, would cope with competing for the first time at such a high standard event.
British players who wanted to take part had to first qualify by securing a top four spot at the British Championship. However, a small number of wild cards were available as well.
Only three players had qualified from Scotland. Including two junior players from the high performance and development programmes we now have in place for all talented youngsters within Scottish TKD. Nikos Jakubiak, National Performance Coach and Head Coach of Scotland’s National Team, attended the event to see first hand how two of our promising players, Marissa and Kristian, would cope with competing for the first time at such a high standard event.
Marissa Petrie from Sokcho TKD club is already well known around Scotland for her successes in Poomsae (forms) competitions.
She took up sport TKD only a few months ago and soon managed to win her first competition at a regional event in England beating players with a lot more sparring experience than her. She entered the British Open with the Scottish National Team Development Squad (NTDS) in the junior division and was up against a very experienced fighter from Germany who is currently ranked second in her country, in her division. “We knew that for Marissa winning this division, at least in this occasion, was too much to expect given how recently she took up sport TKD and how experienced her opponent was. At the same time though, we were confident enough in her abilities to let her have a go against the German fighter. Being able to pick up experience from such a great event is invaluable at this stage of Marissa’s development as it will help her improve her game. Perhaps more crucially though at this stage, it will also help her make a clear assessment of the kind of work she needs to put in to become the player of international calibre she can be” were the comments of Scotland’s Head Coach, Nikos, after Marissa’s match. Marissa lost to her German opponent despite having tried hard to get the result for herself. She did gain though a greater insight into high performance TKD and made her way back to Scotland knowing that she has a much better understanding of what she needs to do to reach the next level. Kristian Kinnon from Central TKD Academy is a current British Champion and entered the British Open with the Scottish National Team and with realistic expectations of winning his division in juniors. His opening game was against an English fighter and for most part of the match it looked as if Kristian had the upper hand. He controlled the match a lot better and for most of the game, but despite some great kicks finding their target the points were not showing up on the score board. Following Kristian’s surprising early exit from the event Nikos commented: “I believe Kristian played a very good game. Perhaps he was a bit let down by the PSS body protectors. I cannot work out why some of the perfect kicks he threw against his opponent’s body were not registered by the system. Nevertheless, Kristian knows now he could have changed his tactics to overcome this issue and find another way to score valuable points. It was a hard lesson to learn but a lesson nevertheless. He is a very talented young player and he will no doubt learn a lot from his experience.” Overall it was a great weekend, the Scottish TKD fans who made it at the British Open created a very good atmosphere for the Scottish players. All TKD fans present were able to enjoy several great performances from some of the World’s best players. For those of you eager to follow the progress of the squad the next international event for Scotland’s National Team and Development Squad will be at the International Masters Open in Bonn on 15-16 October. |
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