Saturday night STA held the second World Qualification Tournament event at the AIS in Canberra. The event was only open to those that finished top three in their division at the first qualification up on the Gold Coast, hence ruling myself out.
Once again the athletes will be using the Daedo electronic scoring system as it has now been confirmed that it will be used in London. A good choice I think because you can actually score on the things unlike the other currently available systems.
The divisions have now been set to Olympic, ie 4 divisions.
Male: -58kg, -68kg, -80kg & +80kg.
Female: -49kg, -57kg, -67kg & +67kg.
From what I hear athletes are still chopping and changing to get into the division which best suits them. For two reasons, the first being giving themselves the best chance to finish on top in their division while secondly picking the division which is most likely going to be selected to compete at London.
We are in a complicated sport and the current Olympic rules have it that a country can only send two of the four divisions in both male and female. A little unfair when you think about it. You can be the best in your division in your country, win outright yet not be selected for the Olympics because the division you are in is less likely to bring back a medal (because it has such strong players from overseas etc). In other words taking all things into consideration, the athletes who are most likely to medal are the ones with the greatest chance of being selected to represent our country.
Congratulations to each of the winners: Saf, Brodie, Burak, Adam, Chynae, Caroline, Carmon, and Jasmine.
The Vics once again started early for seniors. Its a little annoying considering I tell people about the competition and they are all interested in watching a bit of Taekwondo but then find out they have to be there at 9am on a Sunday morning. They are like "your kidding right", because who seriously wants to get out of bed before 9am on a Sunday, I know I sure as hell don't. Its the one day I get to catch up on some much needed sleep!
I knew today would not be a walk in the park (not that it ever is for me) as in my division I have Marcus (last years national winner) and Matty who beat me earlier this year.
On the mats for the first fight, I was pretty comfortable and relaxed, saying to myself "just repeat what worked at the Gold Coast". Of course that's easier said than done and today that style seemed foreign to me as I tried numerous times to get an edge on my opponent. To cut it short I ended up losing quite badly. Looking back I've self analysed it over and over in my head coming to the conclusion I made some fundamental errors. I believe they were not "mentally" warming up beforehand (I probably was to relaxed and not switched on) and not being prepared to work hard. This means I was chasing the guys head for a quick three points and not setting up my attacks, which basically comes back down to preparation in the warm up. Of course the video might show things differently and some of the feedback I got was the referees were quite inexperienced which probably didn't help my cause.
An early finish means I got to watch the competition which I noted was well organised and ran on time putting everyone in a good mood. With 5 courts in operation its hard to see everything going on so I watched some of the guys that I train with and are exceptionally good. Tom destroyed his opponent (as expected), Marcus beat Matty to win my division and I kept an eye on some of the other MTC guys I've gotten to know.
It was interesting to note some of the refereeing decisions which were clearly wrong. One guy scores on his opponent after kicking well below the belt, some head kicks score, others don't and the kyong go (warning with half a point deduction) which weren't enforced.
All this just strengthens the argument to use the electronic scoring system. Something which will no doubt occur eventually but here in Australia we seem to be lagging behind the rest of the world. I for one find it removes some of the human error hence making our competitions fairer. And I think everyone would agree that is in the best interests of all of us.
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