Cochrane's Trinity Taekwon-Do studio had a great showing at the CTFI National Taekwon-Do Championships that took place in Calgary over the Remembrance Day weekend. Trinity sent 27 athletes to the tournament, having 22 members of the club participating in the coloured belt portion on the Saturday in various events while the remaining five, including instructor Cameron Macdonald, competed in the black belt events the following day with a chance to represent Canada on the world stage during the World Championships in Germany next spring had they finished in first place. While that didn't happen for the group, Macdonald said the event was quite the success. "It was a really fantastic event. It was great to have such a high calibre competition close to home, which meant we were able to send 27 athletes to compete. We had a great time ... the Saturday was all about coloured belt competition and then obviously the Sunday was all about black belts," Macdonald said. "It was a really successful weekend, everyone seemed to have a good experience and a lot of the up-and-coming athletes in our group worked really hard for this tournament and it showed. It was just a good team atmosphere with everyone cheering each other on. We did fairly well, bringing home 34 medals in total as a club and it seemed like everyone had a really good experience which is all I can ask for as a coach." Macdonald said there were a couple of performances from his club that really stood out to him over the course of the event. "One that comes to mind is some of my youngest students in the six and seven age group. They had been working so hard for the tournament, getting together at each other's homes to practise and train with one another which is super cool to see leading up to the event," Macdonald said. "In taekwon-do they award a gold, silver and two bronze medals and so we had all four medals from the group. Felix Simard won gold, Grayson Copley took home silver and then Tripp Sarmenta and Hunter Pye both won bronze so that was a highlight for me." Trinity will spend the remainder of 2018 training before getting back into tournaments in the new year.
