There are sure to be a few eyes from Tamworth's Fit-For-It Taekwondo Academy eagerly watching on the taekwondo competition in Paris as they start to dream of one day competing on the Olympic stage themselves.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
or signup to continue reading
For now though their competition focus is on the NSW State Selections tournament in August, where they will be looking to be selected to compete at the Australian Taekwondo Nationals in Brisbane in November.
Earlier this month the club had seven students travel to Penrith for the NSW Round of the KPNP Taekwdondo Open Series.
The biggest contingent the club has taken away to a competition, for four of the seven it was their first-ever time competing.
All four acquitted themselves superbly and contributed to the club's haul of 13 medals.
"It was a great day. All the students were successful in their divisions and gained a lot of valuable experience," instructor David Jackson said.
"Having to travel such a long distance to compete, many of the students contested multiple divisions to gain more fight time and more experience."
Among those making their competition debuts was Damonjot Singh.
Only commencing training at the beginning of Term 1 this year, the 11-year-old has quickly taken to the sport and returned with gold in his yellow belt division and silver competing up in the blue belt division.
"Damonjot really enjoys the challenges of sparring the higher grades in class which led him to enter the higher blue belt division in the competition," Jackson noted.
"It was a hard division for Damonjot, which prepared him to easily win his yellow belt division."
Katarina Koubwere (12) also picked up gold, winning her Poomsae (forms) division.
Joining the academy after her family moved to Tamworth from Brisbane, she was among those that fought in both the forms and Kyorugi (sparring), and also earned a silver in her sparring competition.
"Katarina is a very dynamic student who enjoys sparring," Jackson said.
"Unmatched in her 12 years yellow belt division, she accepted a match play to compete against an older taller blue belt to be able to compete on the day. She fought hard and didn't back down, just being beaten by the more experienced blue belt."
Sisters Charlie, seven, and Violet, eight, Davis, meanwhile won silver and bronze, respectively, in their yellow belt divisions.
"Violet was initially a little nervous going into her match but with the support of her team mates cheering for her, she remained composed and fought a good strong match," Jackson said.
"Charlie, the littler of the sisters was a little rocket moving around the ring throwing and dodging kicks and performed really well to place second."
At the more experienced end, Mirridhi Knox (11) won three silver medals, one each for her blue belt sparring and forms divisions, and one for competing up in the red belt division, while Harrison Kollias (10) picked up silver in his blue belt sparring division as well as silver in the weight division up, and bronze in the red belt division, after winning his opening bout "very convincingly".
Competing in her first forms competition in the blue belt division, after winning the yellow belt gold medal at the South Coast TKD Open in April, Saya Aneesh (8) finished with bronze to go with fourth place in her sparring division.
