Student championships in Tampere on November 24, 2012

Today, November 24, 2012, the student championships were held in Tampere's Nääshall. There were three competitors from the gym of taekwondo athletes. Tanja Lovikka took part in the women's under 49 kg category, who went directly to the finals against Klaukkala's Johanna Niemi. The match was even until the end and Tanja was able to turn the situation around for herself in the third set with her strong attacks. The tight match ended 3-1 and Tanja won the gold medal!

Elom Damalie participated in the under 80 kg category, which had a total of four participants. In the series played on the pool chart, Elom got to fight against all the participants and collected two losses and one win. Topi Unkila of Pori taekwondo beat Elomi in the first match extremely tight 1-2 with a point scored at the end of the third set. In the second match, Loviisa taekwondo's Jouni Lahtinen faced Elomi's concentration and Jouni was able to inoculate points with main hits. Readings for Jouni 10-1. In the third match, the opponent was Reza Salehi from Tampere Kumgang. Elom, who collected small bumps, was not able to offer his best skills, but he made good use of his opponent's violent style of play and earned him warnings. With the score 9-7 in Saleh's favor in the third period, Elom earned him a fourth full warning and thus won the match by forfeit. A bronze medal as a reward for this!

Pauli Raivio, who works as an instructor at the taekwondo athletes' gym, participated in the men's under 68 kg category, which was the biggest category of the competition, with ten competitors. On Paul's way to victory, Turku's Budokwain Ahmed Abdulghani was the first to fall with 12-0 at the end of the second set due to the point difference. Another opponent, Hannu Lavikainen from Joensuu taekwondo, with whom we already fought three full sets. However, Pauli, who played a bit sticky, won with routine performances by 9-5, who knew his place in the semi-finals. In the semi-final, the opponent was Budokwa's representative, Anton Saari, who normally competes under 63 kilos, Nuoren Saari's experience was not enough to keep up with Paul and in the third set, the point difference reached 14-2 and the final place in the bracket. In the final, Aleksi Nurisalo from Tampere's Kumgang offered resistance after three sets. After two tight sets, Pauli took the lead in the third set and kept it until the end, increasing the final score to 3-6. For Paul, after a full day's work, a gold medal around his neck!

Taekwondo athletes strongly congratulates all medalists! Juho Ranta is present as a coach and physiotherapist.