I arrive on Easter, that is, on Good Friday 14.4. and on the second day of Easter 17.4. no rehearsals are organized.

Very nice Easter holidays everyone!

Taekwondo athletes Christian Kamphuis was in a strong competitive mood in the movement series of the Belgian G1 tournament on 18.3.

Christian, Olli Siltanen (Budokwai) and Frans Salmi (Budokwai) took bronze in the U30 men's groups. The group was also the best European group, which bodes well for the upcoming European Championships. In general, the level of competition was really tough, when there was, for example, Taiwan's efficient and numerous national team, which cleaned the tables especially in the U-30 series. However, in his challenging elimination chart of his individual series, Christian advanced three rounds to places 9th-16th.
Top performance!

Plum Kopisto and Aino Kortelainen also showed their poomsae skills on international fields. Plum advanced to the final round in the cadet series from among 19 competitors. The final ranking with Plum was sixth, and the medal was really not behind the impossible points. Unfortunately, Aino was the only participant in his series, but the effective performances did not leave anyone cold.

On Sunday, on the side of the match, Plum continued his work in the cadet series. The opposing German was better than Plum this time, but only by a hair. A brisk kicking rally finally ended 15-10. Tuikku Holopainen took care of his first Portuguese opponent with a precise match 5-4. In the next round, the Serb, who faced him, took the even match to his name with the main hit of the extra set. The performances of the athletes in both forms of competition promise a good end of spring in terms of competitions. The race certainty is starting to be found, but there are still a few tweaks to be made. See you in training!

The Sofia Open G1 tournament took place on March 4-5. in Sofia, Bulgaria. Our club was represented by Tuikku Holopainen, Eddie Quinones, Sara Quinones and Aino Kortelainen.

Tuikku and Eddie applied for competition screens for the cadet European and World Championships. Unfortunately, both missed the goal. Tuikku's opening opponent came from Israel and Tuikku took a clear victory with his precise style. Instead, the Greek in the second round was too hard. The match stretched all the way to the golden point of the overtime, where a small mistake cost a medal and a place in the competition.

Eddie faced a Greek who would have been easy to beat with a basic performance. However, Eddie's work was a bit sloppy in these races and several small mistakes cost him the victory.

Sara only had a final in the children's series. The Cypriot was a clear opponent in the match, and Sara won in quite a superior style.

There were no opponents in Aino's own series, but as a lively girl, Aino competed in a higher weight category. In the semi-final, the representative of Greece was much weaker, while Aino took an overwhelming victory. In the final, there was another Greek who was really tall and strong. Aino couldn't find a way to knock down a hard-kicking opponent and thus brought home a nice silver medal.

The race arrangements work surprisingly well. However, the new judging line was still variable and it caused a lot of headaches for the competitors, from whose point of view the warnings were quite unpredictable in places.

Next, Eddie heads to the Dutch Open next weekend and the rest of the team to Belgium a week later.