I was up early this morning and off to Victoria University for the next installment of selections. Walking into the the basketball stadium in Footscray it has become a familiar scene of the same people from the same clubs. Global, Rawlings, MAS, Titans, Fighting Lyons, OTC, MTC and of course Team Carlo. Looking around at the Taekwondo community encircling the one court that was to be used in todays event, there was perhaps 75 people not including the referees and officials.
I arrived just in time to see the beginning of the first match. The athletes, Jasmine Branca and Bianca D'Andrilli were going through the tedious routine of testing the electronic scoring system. Both athletes kick each others body protectors to confirm the correct operation. And shortly afterwards the match begins. Bianca wins this round but its certainly not the end as for the rest of the day it seems as though these two and Chynae Lang fight again and again and again. After all the ties between the three I believe Chynae took the honors.
Operating the one court was good in the sense that everyones attention was purely focused on the one match and you didn't miss anything. But the downside to this is the boredom of having to wait over and over again before the start of the next match as the Daedo equipment is set up time and time again. It would be nice if they could set the scoring system up for the next match before the current one ended.
Some of the matches were quite boring. Players were overly cautious about attacking and potentially opening themselves up for the counter. Plenty of motioning and not enough action saw the referee kyong go on numerous occasions.
On the other hand we had some pretty awesome displays of spinning hook kicks and turning round houses. And at this level it is what you hope for. With the best athletes here in Australia trying to earn their spot on the Olympic team you sort of expect them to throw everything into each kick.
In most cases it's the "percentage shots" that get the job done. Back foot round house, a fast running kick and maybe some well placed double or triple roundhouses. The truth of the matter is you don't need to know every different technique out there you just need to be exceptionally good at one or two. For example that fast running kick and maybe a slide out counter. Which is why it's really important to practice the basics day in day out.
Of the four that went to the Olympic Qualification Event in Baku, Azerbaijan, three were smiling yesterday. The Marton sisters both comfortably won their divisions along with Saf Khalil who was far to strong for Terrence, Stevie and Daniel. The fourth, Burak was surprisingly beaten by Hayder Shkara who fought exceptionally well to comfortable win against the 2008 Olympian. The other winners included Adam, Brodie and Chynae. Congratulations to all who competed.
Today Team Victoria held the second installment of the three part training sessions to prepare the athletes for Nationals in one month. Over 100 athletes turned up which was good though the majority of these were juniors. Unfortunately not to many seniors made the trip which was disappointing.
For me this was an opportunity to move around and loosen up after a couple of months out with injury. Taking things easy through the course of the session and slowly building towards the end, it was a good indicator of finding out were my bodies at. To my frustration I'm still very week from the injury and really couldn't push myself. Nationals for me could be hit or miss depending on the next few weeks and how quickly I can get my body right. The difficult thing is after everything I have done I still feel I'm an eternity away from being 100%!
No comments:
Post a Comment