This weekend we attended Belgium open 2022.
A high-level tournament with more than 1000 athletes. First of all it was great to see the taekwondo family again. We have been missing to see the tournaments in this form for about 2 years.
We had three athletes from Copenhagen City taekwondo: Ilyas Torkhani, Ibrahim Torkhani and Nikola Golemac. We had some changes in the fighting style since Sofia open, so it was interesting to see if it is possible to do the changes in two weeks.
Ilyas had a tuff draw as first was a team mate from the national team and next up the no 1 ranked Spanish guy.
Ilyas won the first fight and unfortunately lost the second. No shame loosing to the best and putting up a good fight
Next day we had Ibrahim and Nikola in the juniors division -59 and -55 kg. In this tournament the best of three rounds rule was applied, so it was interesting to see it in action.
Both kids did a fantastic job, and actually defeated some of the best players even having less experience. The new rule IS a game changer for sure. Faster games and you need to be clever, but no fencing with legs as this could cost you time and loosing the round.
Nikola fought 5 fights (6 to win the gold), and lost to the Cadet European championship (2021) from Poland. Thus it ended with a bronze medal.
Ibrahim fought 4 fights (5 to win the gold) and lost to Spain who eventually won the competition.Thus also a bronze medal for Ibrahim.
Really good to see that we are on the right track. The new rules are really good and wil definitely do good for the boring front-leg-fencing. Other rules to come wil bring back more spectacular kicks, so I will be looking forward to this.
A high-level tournament with more than 1000 athletes. First of all it was great to see the taekwondo family again. We have been missing to see the tournaments in this form for about 2 years.
We had three athletes from Copenhagen City taekwondo: Ilyas Torkhani, Ibrahim Torkhani and Nikola Golemac. We had some changes in the fighting style since Sofia open, so it was interesting to see if it is possible to do the changes in two weeks.
Ilyas had a tuff draw as first was a team mate from the national team and next up the no 1 ranked Spanish guy.
Ilyas won the first fight and unfortunately lost the second. No shame loosing to the best and putting up a good fight
Next day we had Ibrahim and Nikola in the juniors division -59 and -55 kg. In this tournament the best of three rounds rule was applied, so it was interesting to see it in action.
Both kids did a fantastic job, and actually defeated some of the best players even having less experience. The new rule IS a game changer for sure. Faster games and you need to be clever, but no fencing with legs as this could cost you time and loosing the round.
Nikola fought 5 fights (6 to win the gold), and lost to the Cadet European championship (2021) from Poland. Thus it ended with a bronze medal.
Ibrahim fought 4 fights (5 to win the gold) and lost to Spain who eventually won the competition.Thus also a bronze medal for Ibrahim.
Really good to see that we are on the right track. The new rules are really good and wil definitely do good for the boring front-leg-fencing. Other rules to come wil bring back more spectacular kicks, so I will be looking forward to this.