Over the weekend of 27th and 28th September 2014, a team of Blue Dragon TKD members competed at the Unified ITF English Championships held in Alfreton, Derbyshire.
Returning to competition for the first time in 11 years and leading the medal charge was our first and only competitor on the Saturday, 4th degree black belt and our Barnton club instructor, Dr Garnet Ronander.
After defeating the reigning world champion in his semi final fight, Dr Ronander despite being well ahead and winning the fight he was sadly unable to continue and had to settle for a Silver medal after suffering a serious knee injury in the final, bringing his competition to an early and unfortunate end.
The main contingent arrived early on the Sunday morning and quickly earned 2 Bronze medals, going to Damian Ronander and Daniel Gatcliffe for Yellow belt patterns, with both boys in their first ever competition.
Again both Damian and Daniel matched each other’s results and again both won a second medal of the day with a Silver each in their respective sparring divisions.
Next up was Connor Bettley, who despite his success at the Scottish Championships in June, found himself outgunned by much larger opponents and was narrowly defeated at the quarter final stage of both patterns and sparring.
Next up was another first time competitor Izzy Walsh, who bravely fought her way to a Bronze medal in sparring.
This only left one more competitor of our small team, John Wilson. His quarter final match lasted less than 5 seconds, when with a single impeccably placed kick to his opponent’s head it was all over before it began. 5 minutes of cleaning up blood from the mats and the injured fighter then ensued as John looked on and was awarded the match by a technical knockout. Following this spectacular win there was some discussion among the umpires and for some unfathomable reason 1 other competitor who had not yet fought anyone was given a “by” straight to the final and John was placed against another competitor who had been given a “by” straight to the semi-final, all very strange indeed. This was compounded by clear shots not being scored by the umpires during the semi final and even though he was on top for the whole match John was “beaten” but won the Bronze medal.
So another eventful and successful competition for Team Blue Dragon with 3 Silvers and 4 Bronze medals from our 6 valiant competitiors.
