More Than Hardware for Trinity Taekwon-do Competitors

Trinity Taekwon-do athletes walked away with more than just a large collection of hardware this past weekend (November 10 and 11) 

In total, twenty-seven individuals competed, including Cameron Macdonald, Owner/Instructor in the C.T.F.I. National Championships. While in total the competitors brought home 34 medals, they also took away valuable lessons for improvement.C

Clean sweep of the podium for these white belts.

Macdonald shares energy was high at the two-day competition at Genesis Centre in Calgary which saw 573 participants registered with roughly 1000 people in total attending. "It was a great atmosphere with lots of energy. They had a Japanese drumming group do the Opening Ceremonies so that got everyone pumped up for competition."

Saturday was predominantly dedicated to colour belt competitions which saw 22 out of 27 Trinity athletes from Cochrane and Water Valley compete. "I was able to coach most of them throughout the day, they were spread out well enough that I was able to go from ring, to ring, to ring to coach the guys and gals. It was super fun and a very successful day. People tried hard, won some medals, and it was really rewarding."

On Sunday the level of competition was intense, shares Macdonald, with black belt competitions taking up half the day and sparring taking the rest. "Black belt sparring is just really awesome and intense. There were some great athletes from across Canada there and definitely some matches that even, I, was excited to see just as a spectator, let alone coaching my own guys and competing myself."

While Macdonald wasn't able to personally coach his athletes like the day prior, he says his assistant coach Colin Fetaz stepped up and filled in for him while he hit the mat and competed personally at the same time. "Myself and two other black belts won silver medals, no one won a gold to qualify for the Worlds Championships, but that was okay. I think it gives us something to strive for and allows us to grow and get better for next time."

A photo of Felix Simard (in red helmet) sparring.Although a gold medal finish would have automatically qualified the athletes for a place on Team Canada and the opportunity to compete at Worlds, Macdonald, shares although extremely close, nobody left disappointed. "All my black belts, none of them had competed at Nationals before and they all had amazing attitudes and were thrilled with even just winning a match and losing the second one or whatever the circumstance was. No one seemed disappointed in their performance they all took something from it and learned. I think they took it as a learning experience but none of them were disappointed."

The best part says Macdonald was seeing how Trinity members came together to support one another. "It was close, exciting, and we had lots of support. We had lots of the clour belts from the day before come back to watch, even members who weren't competing in the tournament came, and even some of our volunteers from both days. It was great and really good team comradery amongst our club and a really good thing to build from."

This was a big deal for the club states Macdonald on so many levels. "It was biggest in terms of competing on a National level, big in terms of the number of competitors, and close to home so we could send lots of competitors."

Coming up in the New Year, Trinity will host their own tournament before competing in the Western Canadian Championships and continuing on, to do what they do.

 

Below is a breakdown of how the athletes did: