There are well over 3000 people competing from all around the world. There were teams from the USA, Australia, Korea, Nepal, Argentina, Antilles to name but a few. It really is an international event.
Both of my kids were competing. My daughter went up first. She's in heavyweight. She did really well but got knocked out of the competition by the eventual winner, who was about 6 inches taller than her and about 3 stone heavier. My daughter is in heavyweight under 14s so the only restriction is age. What made me proud was the way she went on to fight, despite taking a massive kick to the ribs which winded her. She didn't have to carry on and I thought she would drop out, but she got back in there and only lost 3-1. The girl who beat won her previous round 9-0.
I was bursting with pride at her performance. She was awarded a bronze.
My son is red belt black tag which is one grading away from first dan. There are a lot of lads at this grade, as it's difficult to get black belt so you tend to find a lot of kids hang back for a few months to make sure they're ready to do it.
Alex and I had been sparring all week , trying to get his opening moves sorted as he tends to freeze in his first fight. All of that went out of the window and he got off to a slow start, but got into the fight and won.
He had several fights and progressed to the final, which he won. My son is a World Taekwondo gold medalist. His instructor was at the arena and it meant so much to him he grabbed Alex and almost threw him into the air
Both of the kids went into the tag team which is 3v3 Sadly Alex's team went out first round and there weren't enough girls at my daughter's level for any fights. So they had a 3v3 against 3 girls who were 3 or 4 grades higher. They lost that but fought well. As there were only two teams the winners got gold and the losers got silver. It's good experience for them all. Poor Alex was in tears after losing the tag team having been on such a high winning his division.
Some photos. Sorry about the quality but the area is massive so I had to zoom to take them.
