Eight martial artists from Atlantis Taekwondo won medals at provincials in Vancouver recently.
At all different belt-levels and facing 2-6 competitors in each division, the group competed in both sparring and patterns.
Put on by the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) of B.C., the tournament included 153 competitors from 10 different clubs in the province.
Young Stina Genge struck her way to first in sparring, competing with three others in her age 7-8 white belt to yellow stripe division.
She also took bronze in patterns against five other competitors.
Her dad Graham Genge competed in smaller divisions in the white belt 18+ division.
He won first in patterns against one other martial artist, and second in sparring against three others.
Coach Cody Skog says the pair is awesome and enthusiastic.
“Stina always rocks, just like her dad. He’s been to like five classes and YouTube’s everything. He’s just like ‘I saw this 360 kick, so I thought I’d just fire it out there,'” Skog laughed. “I’m like, ‘you go man!'”
A new young martial artist, Dasean McDonald, sliced his way to first in the sparring middle-weight division for age 9-11 white-green stripe.
He competed with five others in his division.
Cody Skog also competed and got first in sparring against four competitors and bronze in patterns against three people. He said the final fight was against a heavyset and agressive blackbelt.
“He hit hard, kind of like freight train,” Skog said. “But I was a little bit faster than him, so I was able to tag him and move, do dodging back kicks… moving back and striking at the same time,” he said.
He added that regular morning workouts have kept him in better shape to compete.
Leo Strimbold tied for bronze in his patterns division against four people, and second in sparring in a division of three.
Other winners were Thayna Healey and Olivia Woods, who both took second in their sparring divisions, and Damian Knox who tied for third in his sparring division of four.
The Sept. 23 provincial tournament was at the beginning of the taekwondo season, and ITF instructor Darius Andaya said in an email that was due to a venue problem.
