Elite Taekwondo teams kick on at nationals

IT has been a huge month for the teams from Elite Taekwondo.

Having first faced off against the best in Victoria at the State Hockey and Netball Centre for the Victorian Titles on September 8-9, where the top four from each category would win their way through to compete in the Nationals.

Elite managed to produce seven State Champions, two of which came from the Torquay-based club, eight silver and seven bronze at final tally.

With the next two weeks’ training aimed to improve sparring tactics and create mental focus, the Elite team headed to Bendigo to compete against the rest of the Australian Taekwondo teams.

This event brings the very best athletes together as it is also selections for the Australian Team.

Among the players were the 2016 Olympians, showing their skills and why they are still at the height of their game.

Competition ran from September 22-24 covering all areas such as sparring, poomsae (forms), creative patterns, power breaking and technical breaking.

There were a lot of hard-fought matches in sparring with everyone putting in a huge effort.

Star Lawson from Elite Taekwondo Torquay and Alan Salek from Geelong narrowly missed out on Australian Titles in their final matches, having out classed the rest of their field and were behind by two points and three point respectively as the clock ran out.

The final tally for Elite Taekwondo was two gold, seven silver and two bronze.

Torquay Elite Taekwondo owner Alistair Lawson managed to secure a gold to become Australian Champion in the poomsae division in his first year competing in this category.

“It is a great feeling to come away with a win after putting in so much time training for these events,” Mr Lawson said.

“I’m really impressed by the whole team at Elite as they all trained so hard and really adopted a never give up attitude, which will definitely see them all achieve great things in the future. I’m looking forward to seeing them all competing again next year.”

Elite Taekwondo is a full-time training centre catering for all ages in their state-of-the-art facility in Torquay. For more details, phone Alistair on 0422 353 723, email [email protected], or visit elitetaekwondoaustralia.com.au.