Saturday 13th May 2017 saw the return of the Scottish Goodwill Championships to our Taekwondo-UK calendar of events.  This event hasn't taken place for a few years and we were all very much looking forward to its return.

 

A team of 21 competitors from across the Trident Group as well as several coaches and umpires travelled up to Edinburgh to take part and support the event.  Most of the group were staying together in a hotel in Dunfermline and we all enjoyed taking the time to relax and socialise together on the Friday night when we arrived before the busy day we had ahead of us on the Saturday and celebrated together on the Saturday night after the competition was over.

 

Saturday morning arrived and we all headed out to the Meadowbank Sports Centre to ensure we had all weighed in and were ready to compete.  The event opened promptly with a short speech from Mr Condie V Degree to welcome everyone to the event and from Mr Archer VI Degree and President of Taekwon-Do UK. 

 

We soon all got down to work with the squares all running quickly and efficiently to get through the large number of competitors.  We started off with all the Pee Wee and Junior categories, getting through their patterns and sparring before sending them on to do special technique and eventually moved on to the adults with the tournament finally winding up around 7pm.

 

It was a very long day and everybody involved worked extremely hard to ensure that categories were as fair as possible and that all competitors went away feeling they had had a good experience, even if they perhaps were not successful at winning a medal this time.

 

Massive congratulations are due to our 21 competitors, who came away with 34 medals; 7 Gold, 18 Silver and 9 Bronze.  This is a massive achievement with a lot of very young students in our group and also a lot of lower grades who would be competing in this event for the first time.

 

Huge thanks must go to Mr Condie and his team for all the hard work they put in to making sure this event was a success and for being excellent hosts to those of us who had travelled.    

 

I would like to thank our team of Coaches; Miss Romy Mottershead II Degree, Mrs Sonia Thompson I Degree and Mrs Havva Dervish I Degree, who ensured that all students were on their squares promptly as soon as their categories were called and kept everybody motivated throughout the day. 

 

Thanks also to our Officials who were working hard all day; Mr James Miley VI Degree, Mr Jonathan Emm IV Degree, Mr Jeff Brider VI Degree (and also Mrs Alexis Brider who seemed to have been roped in to help with paperwork at one point!), Mr Phil Mottershead III Degree and myself.

 

Last but not least, thank you to the parents and spectators who brought students to the event and cheered for everyone in our team whenever we were competing, regardless of whether it was a student they knew. 

 

We have had some excellent results here as well as some good feedback from some of the Umpires on things we can work on to improve before the next event.  The next Taekwon-Do UK Tournament will be the British Championships on 14th October so I hope we can all continue to work hard and come back with even better results then!

 

Miss Jayne Heywood III

Publicity Officer for the Northern Region