Members of Cascadia Martial Arts Parksville competed at the Korean Consul Cup and came home with a huge haul of medals.
Instructor Brett Fee said the team excelled in both sparring and poomsae (fighting patterns) competitions that were held at the Richmond Olympic Oval on Oct. 16.
“It was almost surreal being at an in person competition,” said Fee. “It’s been nearly two years for us making the trip to a taekwondo competition. Everyone had a great time and really rose to the occasion. They were all a bit nervous but handled it very well.”
Team Cascadia won four gold medals in sparring, three silvers and a bronze. While in poomsae, they won two gold and four silver medals.
Leading the way was the Easthom family of Sydney, Danielle and Griffin who all competed in the sparring category. They scored a hat trick of gold medals as they all won their respective sparring matches and placed first in their respective weight divisions. The fourth gold medallist on the team was Christina Ma.
The silver medallists in sparring consisted of Han Bee, Rowan Spitz, Bee Han, Arni Marquez, with Niko Gould collecting a bronze medal.
READ MORE: VIDEO: B.C. Taekwondo school hosts virtual sparring match
In the poomsae competition, Malaya Billington and Sofia Tremblay finished first in their respective weight divisions while Wendy Wilkins, Fiona Kalbfleisch, Christina Ma and Augustus Ma each finished in second place.
Cascadia also sent some athletes to compete in the high-level black belt poomsae division for the first time. They include Han Bee, Minsan Jin, Samantha Kalbfleisch, Danielle Easthom, Ayanna Anderson, Brodin Urquhart, Brooklyn Urquhart and Rowan Spitz.
“Our Team Cascadia poosae squad had a great showing,” said Fee. “The team learned a lot and gained some valuable experience at this event.”
Cascadia is now focusing on the 2022 Canadian National Taekwondo Championships that will take place in Toronto from Jan. 7-9.
“We are now training and are sending athletes to train with Team BC on the mainland every Saturday to get some additional sparring training in with B.C.’s top athletes,” said Fee.
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