Thirteen competitors from the KEES Yorkton Taekwondo club participated on Saturday, June 1 at the fourth Annual Iron Fist Taekwondo Club Challenge in Winnipeg. The event was hosted by Iron Fist Taekwondo. They have been established in Winnipeg for more than 25 years.
The event was a welcome participation and experience opportunity for our junior elite and developing future elite players. The event was capped at 260 players from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Ontario and northern USA. There was over 32 clubs in attendance this year. The events consisted of sparring (Kyorugi), patterns (Poomsae) and Breaking (Kyupka). Athletes could enter one, two or three events. The competition in most divisions was very high this year.
Coaches for this event were Master Wayne Mitchell, Sam Lohnes and Shane Varjassy.
There were many notable results Tyana Daigneault and Nathan Head came away as triple medalist. Tyler Buenneke, Kallie Buenneke, Nathan Head and Josiah Head showed strong performance as double medalists.
Tyler Buenneke was the gold medalist in the Junior B Black belt lightweight sparring division winning all two tough matches against taller opponents. Nathan Head had opponents with much higher belts but his performance was much superior to even those advanced players. He decimated his opponent in one of his three games by a score of 27 to 0. Zane Chopik competed in the black belt division for his first time. In the gold medal match, Zane was ahead by three points. As the time was running down his opponent kept a high level of pressure on that ended the game with a 9 to 8 score. Zane settled for the Silver medal. Tyana Daigneault and Janaya Head met each other in the third match for the gold medal. It was a very exciting match that went to overtime. Tyana came out on top this time with the gold.
