Yorkton's Shane Varjassy, an 18-year-old second Dan black belt at Kee's Taekwondo Yorkton, showed everyone at the Prairie Wildfire Taekwondo Challenge why he is one of the top fighters in the Western provinces, dominating both of his opponents to win the gold medal in the Black Belt Male Adult Middleweight category in convincing fashion.
Varjassy's first fight saw the local man pitted against Nicholas Turchyn.
The talented Yorkton black belt proved to be more than a match for Turchyn, utilizing his quick feet to land three straight head kicks to take a 9-0 advantage.
Turchyn managed to score one point before Varjassy scored four points in quick succession to end the fight at 13-1.
The win propelled the Kee's fighter to the gold medal match, where he took on Austin Brolund.
This fight was closer than the first with both fighters trading a couple of points before Varjassy took a 4-2 lead with a solid body kick and never looked back, piling on five more points while Brolund could muster just one more in a 9-3 Varjassy gold medal victory.
Because of his dominance Varjassy also took home the honour of Best Adult Male, which takes the physical form of a sword instead of a trophy to pay tribute to Korea, where Taekwondo originates.
While many people in the building fully expected Varjassy to run roughshod over his opponents to the gold medal, the man himself was not one of them. "You don't really expect it, you never expect it. You just hope for it," offered Varjassy following the medal presentation. "It's good when it happens and you feel good afterwards but you always have to work for it."
Varjassy then mentioned that it felt good to win, but even more so because it was in front of his hometown friends and family. "It always feels good to win of course, but this feels even better because it's at home," said the gold medalist. "My dad, my mom and my step dad are here I think my sister and my dad's girlfriend were here too so it felt good to win in front of them."
For now Varjassy will take some time off from competition, as will the rest of the Kee's Yorkton members, before competition season begins again in January 2015.
