Although only eighteen athletes from Trinity Taekwon-Do attended the Alberta Cup in Lethbridge, we scored big time in medal rankings.

Over 300 competitors from British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan attended the June 2 tournament and owner/instructor Cameron Macdonald was pleased. "Really good turnout. I brought 17 students and competed myself in one event so that made eighteen of us competing and we brought home 28 medals; 14 bronze, 9 gold and 5 silver. It was a good way to end the last competition of our training year."

The competing participants ranged in age and belt level from 4 up to adult and white to black belt. Showcasing their skills in sparring and patterns, Macdonald shares this event allowed board breaking by colour belts as well. "Pretty much everybody did patterns and sparring but this event is one of the rare ones where some of the higher levels of colour belts can do the breaking. So I had one red belt do breaking and my junior black belt and I, so three of us did breaking."

Some of Trinity's youngest athletes really stood out, says Macdonald, and he is excited to see where their enthusiasm takes them. "There are a brother (Lucas, white belt) and sister (Alexa, yellow belt) that have been pretty keen with their training and competition and that's pretty cool to see; one is white belt and one is a yellow belt. That's a nice thing for an instructor to see... that those students are really soaking it in."

Another highlight were those who participated in board breaking. "I have always loved board breaking, so seeing students of mine take on the challenge of board breaking and watching and helping them. Lots of people do patterns, lots of people spar but not a lot of people do board breaking."

The club will start to wind down as summertime approaches only to pick back up in early fall. This fall will prove to be an exciting one for Taekwon-Do competitors as Nationals are being held in Calgary. Macdonald shares the November tournament not only will be the first of next year's season but also a massive one. "Big for a couple reasons; one because it's Nationals and two because every second year the Nationals has a selection year because the World Championships are held every second year so this will be a qualifying year for people trying to make the World Championships."

Macdonald encourages martial arts fans to mark the CTFI National Championships on November 10th and 11th on the calendar if you are interested in watching some high level, competitive Taekwon-Do action.