Cochrane's Trinity Taekwon-Do will be sending 27 athletes to compete in the Canadian Taekwon-Do Federation International (CTFI) National Championships that will be held at Genesis Place in Calgary on Nov. 10 and 11. "We are super excited. A tournament of this size and calibre hasn't come to Calgary or the Calgary area for a number of years so we're trying to take full advantage of that. I think with our turnout, it's pretty good with 27 of us participating," said instructor Cameron Macdonald. "We're very excited to represent Cochrane and we also have four students from the Water Valley club attending so I think it'll be a great experience. The students are excited to get this type of level of exposure and hopefully it's a good experience for all." "Sending that many competitors, I think it speaks to the fact that Cochrane is growing and there's lots of opportunities like this for people to get involved in martial arts, whether you're interested in competing or not ... there's lots of different reasons for people to get involved. Competitions are one of the reasons why and the opportunities are there for those who want to (compete) and at Trinity Taekwon-Do we give people the opportunity to train for a variety of reasons such as self defence, self-confidence or in this case, take your skills to the mat against some of the best in Canada and see how you stack up." Twenty-two members of the club will be participating in the coloured belt portion of the tournament on the Saturday in various events while the remaining five including Macdonald will compete in the black belt events the following day. Should any black belt from Trinity finish first in their competition, they'll have a chance to represent Canada at the upcoming World Championships in Germany that would take place in the spring. "Amongst the five of us, I think that there's great potential for the group to at least get an opportunity to go to the World Championships. It's a major accomplishment but I don't think any of my black belt students have even really thought much about it," Macdonald said. "I think it'd be such a big accomplishment, that the idea is there but actually obtaining it seems a little tougher because it is such a major milestone."
