Stratford beat weather to scoop Trident medals

WHILE the Beast from the East was causing mayhem across the country last weekend, Stratford’s Taekwon-do Club sent a team of competitors, support judges and senior instructors including Master John Archer to the T-UK Trident Championships in Manchester.

The tournament attracted competitors from all over the country, including competitors from Scotland, Liverpool, Leeds, Chester and Stockport.

Nearly 250 competitors ranging from six-year-olds to veterans were on show, competing in sparring, patterns and special techniques disciplines.

First to compete for Stratford was Jason Wright in the black belt veteran sparring category, and showing none of his age was an early visitor to the podium, winning gold.

Next to compete for Stratford was Sophia Lykova in the junior black belt division, competing against tough competitors in her division won two well deserved bronze medals.

Brothers Akash and Annikat Kandola. also competing for Stratford, narrowly missed out on medals in some fierce competition in patterns and sparring.

Next up were Stratford’s Demi, Sky and Billy Barnett, competing in the ten-year-olds and under.

Seven-year-old Billy competed in the pattern division, making it to the final where he produced his best performance to take gold.

Sky, eight, and Demi, ten, both competed in all three disciplines on the day and produced top performances with Sky dominating the sparring in her division, with Demi on top form, to win all their categories and walk away with six gold medals between them.

The standard of the competition was extremely high and Master, John Archer, said: “The tournament was as always, exciting and enjoyable and all credit goes to all the competitors who battled through the tournament on the day, as well as the weather, to compete.

“We are very much looking forward to next year’s competition.”