You can head into Calgary today (November 11) to help cheer on our local Taekwon-do athletes.

The C.T.F.I. National Championships will begin at 8 this morning at Genesis Centre in Calgary and is not only one of the largest Taekwon-do events to occur in our area in years, but is a huge accomplishment for our local athletes.

With competitors attending from all over Canada, the event is massive in terms of both athletic representation and ability.

Cameron Macdonald, Owner/Instructor from Trinity Taekwon-do shares they are taking full advantage of the close-to-home tournament by having twenty-seven athletes (including himself) compete in the two-day tournament which kicked off yesterday. "Not only do we have a good turn out but hopefully we'll see some good results too."

Winning the bid to host the high calibre colour and black belt tournament was made easier by Alberta's strong growth in attracting a large number of athletes over the last couple of years. "A lot of these events are held in other strongholds in Canada for the I.T.F. mostly Quebec, so it's great to have it come out west."

Not only are a large number of athletes participating but onlookers will see some amazing technical ability hit the mats. "Black belts can qualify to go on and compete at the World Championships so that is an incentive for black belts to travel further to be involved in this type of tournament. At the black belt level, it's quite interesting, there's athletes that have been in multiple World Championships and World Cups trying to secure their spot for the next one which is in Germany in April to some new black belts or black belts just throwing their hat in the ring for the first time."

While it would be great to walk away with some hardware, Macdonald doesn't place a huge emphasis on medal rankings. "It's kind of a cliche answer; I am hoping I don't put all the emphasis on medals and I don't put all the emphasis on winning but if some of the students came home with medals and hardware that would be great. But my biggest desire is that people just have a good experience. If people can go to a competition and have a positive experience, they're more likely to want to go back and do it again. If we can keep learning, growing and coming back and doing it again, the medals will come or at least the lessons we learn will be worth more than the medals anyway."

Genesis Centre is located in NE Calgary at #10, 7555 Falconridge Blvd. Over 570 individuals are registered to compete in the National Championships and all are invited to cheer the athletes on.