Colour Belt Team Success in Slovenia

The R.I.T.A.’s colour belt team have just returned from a successful trip to the beautiful city of Ljubljana in Slovenia. The team which took part in the 4 th Ljubljana Cup took home 1 gold, 3 silver and 7 bronze. The main purpose of the trip was to increase their experience of competing overseas so the medals were seen as a real bonus. The team members were; Eamonn Maher, Darryl Day, Evan Shortiss, Gavin O’Hanlon, Patrick Conlon, Billy Tobin, Niamh Cooney, Conor Dunne, Brendan M cGarry, Aisling Pyke, and Roisin O’Neill.

The team had an early start on Friday and travelled to Ljubljana via Paris. They arrived to a lovely snow covered city and were greeted at the airport by the tournament organisers (Mr Ismet Alijagic and Ms Jana Petric of PUMA Taekwon-Do school). After a short bus ride to the Bit Centre Hotel the team checked in and planned out the rest of the day. The team were supposed to weigh-in later that evening in the local dojang but our very helpful hosts arranged to do the weigh-in in the hotel.

After a light lunch, a rest, a snow ball fight, and an hours training the team weighed in. All the team made their weights (just about).

The next day (Saturday) the squad made the 20 minute walk to the sports centre and got prepared for the day ahead. The stadium was laid out with three matted rings and was fully seated around the edge. Patterns were on first with the team doing well, and all members performing their patterns well. The improvement in their patterns over the four short months training was obvious. The sparring was next, it was a bit of a shock for the team to see all grades (yellow to black belt) mixed together, divided by weight and sex. But they were here for experience and that is exactly what they got. The standard of the sparring was high. Even the Slovenian yellow and green belts were good and not one bit intimidated by sparring higher grades and on occasion even beating black belts. The level of contact was higher that allowed at an R.I.T.A. event, it was more like that seen at a European Championships. The contact wasn’t malicious it was just that the techniques were done very fast. Some of the team got to spar members of the Slovenia National team who competed in Ireland at the Euros, that’s the experience they were looking. The colour belt team held their own but need more experience sparring at this level.

The next day (Sunday) all the squad and parents got a chance to look a round Ljubljana and see what a beautiful city it was. Later that day they were picked up from the hotel by Mr Baltic and his daughter and Mr Ismet Alijagic and dropped to the airport. The tournament was organised by two Slovenian Taekwon-Do Schools (Tiger and PUMA www.tkd-puma.com ). They ran a great tournament and made the team and feel really welcome, going out of their way to look after them and make sure that they had a good experience in Ljubljana.

The next Colour Belt squad training will be open to all colour belts who are interested in going to the British Open in November 2006 and Slovenia in 2007 for the 5 th Ljubljana Cup. Initially sessions will be once a month starting in March. Watch this space for more details or contact Mr Howard (Robert.howard@dit.ie)

The results were (click here to see photos)

Gold

Roisn O’Neill –Patterns

Silver

Patrick Conlon – Patterns

Conor Dunne – Patterns

Roisn O’Neill – Sparring

Bronze

Eammon Maher –Sparring

Niamh Cooney – Patterns, Sparring

Aisling Pyke –Sparring

Brendan McGarry - Sparring

Gavin O’Hanlon–Sparring

Patrick Conlon –Sparring

 

For a full list of results see www.tkd-puma.com/rezultatiopenljubljana2006.htm

Click here to view profiles of the squad.