Cochrane’s Trinity Taekwon-Do fought their way to the top, after securing 36 medals at the ITF Provincial Championships on May 11.
The tournament took place at the Genesis Centre in Airdrie, and hosted around 350 competitors of all ages.
Trinity Taekwon-Do head instructor and head coach at the competition, Cameron Macdonald, said their dojang sent 31 representatives including 26 martial artists, four full-time umpires.
“We received eight gold, 11 silver, and 17 bronze,” Macdonald said. “I think this was one of our best turnouts in terms of podiums and gold medals in a long time.”
Macdonald said he was able to witness some outstanding performances first-hand, adding that the this plays into the many life skills that their club teaches students.
“This month, we chose to talk about tenacity, and it was just a really good demonstration of people who had to be tenacious, and just dug deep to pull off a win in overtime and stuff like that,” Macdonald said. “I saw this time and time again, so the students did really well.”
For Macdonald, a few highlights included two of his adult students, Maddie du Toit and Mark Orcutt, who took home gold in sparring competitions, and yellow belt student, Shiloh Snoeij, who took home gold at their first tournament.
Following their success at provincials, Macdonald said there’s no rest for their fighters as they are heading to compete at another competition.
“We have six athletes going, five colour belts and one black belt, going to Regina this weekend for the North American Invitational Taekwon-Do Tournament,” Macdonald said.
Macdonald said he is grateful for all the hard work everyone has been putting in, and he thanks everyone for their dedication.
“We’ve been doing extra competition classes and working hard at getting people ready for tournaments,” Macdonald said. “I just think it’s a great testament to our team in their coaching and everything else.”
