Here’s an update from the British Taekwondo Sport Performance Department.

NATIONAL TEAM SELECTIONS

We recently held our series of competitions in Manchester & Liverpool which were used to select the National Teams for the Cadet World Championships (July 2022) and the -21 European Championships (October 2022). The competitions were packed full of drama and excitement and the athletes left it all on the mat fighting for the opportunity to represent their country.

I want to take this opportunity to thank my department members Dan Flesher & Donna Thomas who worked tirelessly to ensure these events ran smoothly and there were no major hiccups on the day. I would also like to say a huge thank you to our referees that give up their time for very little reward, without this team of people there would be no events. These guys need support and so if you have any members or parents in your club that you think would make a good official, please point them in the right direction so we can increase the number of participants in our events throughout Britain.

Finally thank you to the volunteers that helped on the day both from the clubs and British Taekwondo. We only needed a handful, but these few are the real unsung heroes, giving their time free of charge purely to promote the growth of TKD. Thank you all so much.

It was a real ambition of ours to host one of these events in the South of the country as so many participants were based there but despite our efforts, we simply couldn’t find an affordable venue, we spoke to lots of you and some of you assisted a lot but unfortunately to no avail. These selection events are pretty small in terms of numbers and so they don’t generate a great deal of revenue, but as always if any of you know of an alternative venue that would be suitable in the future please do let us know.

We will give a shout out to the Under 21 team closer to their event but as this will be my last update before the Cadet World Championships takes place we want to wish our team good luck in their preparations and also out in the event. Please get behind and support our fighters that will represent GB at the end of July………GOOD LUCK TEAM.

CADET EUROPEAN CHAMPIONSHIPS SELECTION 2022

The department have received information that the Cadet European Championships will take place towards the end of the year. Again, we intend to have selection decisions settled on the mat and so we are currently in the final process of putting together the Selection Policy for this competition. If you have ambitions of taking part in this competition, please pay attention to any future notices released by British Taekwondo.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CAMP – LONDON

Our very first Youth Development Camp was held in London on 14th & 15th May, originally planned to be a one day event we had to add an additional day due to popular demand, altogether we had 110 athletes from 29 different clubs take part and this is an amazing starting point for us to build on. As always thanks to the Operational team that worked hard to make this happen and also the coaches in our delivery team but I want to reserve the biggest appreciation for the Instructors that allowed their students to attend and make this event a success and to Master Richard Allen and Master Jawed Sidiqi for their support in delivering over the weekend.

We see these sessions as an important first step onto our pathway, they help to build relationships between our department and the clubs, our coaches and the athletes of the future. There were also some really talented athletes at these sessions and in the future, we will look to promote these exceptional talents directly into our squad. We received so much positive feedback and people are already asking us to arrange the next one, our aim is that these sessions are informative, fun & enjoyable, we ran a TKD quiz in the lunch break each day, the teams were random and all the children made new friends with people from other clubs. Our winners were “Team 6” who didn’t get a single question wrong….….Congratulations to the members of team 6.

NEXT YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CAMPS

We are delighted to announce the dates for our next Youth Development Sessions. Unfortunately, we have limited spaces and we won’t be extending these to 2 day events so it will simply be first come first served, you can find the sign up link with all of the details below.

Ferryhill Leisure Centre, Durham, Saturday 23rd July

Any student members (and coaches) that would like to sign up to the Durham sessions please complete the sign up form.

Prendergast Hillyfields Sports Hall, Brockley, London, Saturday 3rd September 2022

Any student members (and coaches) that would like to sign up to the London sessions please complete the sign up form.

POLISH OPEN 2022 ATTENDANCE

We still have ambition to attend the Polish Open with the British Taekwondo squad. For many athletes it is their dream to represent their country but for the majority they will never achieve this, we want to open this door and offer the opportunity to have the experience of travelling as a team member to an international competition. If this idea progresses and we take this forward, we will offer a place to any athlete that has either attended a minimum of 4 squad sessions or qualified to represent Great Britain at the Cadet World Championships or the -21 European Championships.

We sent an email to gauge the interest of our current squad members and the initial response was very positive. We are very transparent and our aim is to copy in all club instructors to any correspondence we send out, please accept our apologies because we made a mistake and did miss a proportion of instructors from our initial email.

When we have more information on this competition you will hear more from us.

GROWING OUR COACHNG TEAM – INVITES TO NATIONAL SQUAD SESSION

The above 2 themes will go hand in hand. We are now in position to be able to invite coaches in to spectate at our Squad Sessions in Manchester, this cannot become a free for all and will be managed very tightly. The way in which this can work best is if we have a handful of coaches attend each session so we are able to spend some time with you, I hope we have a positive response and significant numbers so that we need to rotate and it would be impossible for coaches to attend multiple sessions in a row. There are 2 main reasons why this is going to be a positive step forward.

Firstly, if you consider yourself to be an inexperienced coach then the chance to learn and develop your own knowledge from this opportunity could be massive.

Secondly, if you are a more experienced coach and have produced elite level athletes this could be beneficial for both parties. Whilst you might not learn lots, it is chance for us to begin working more closely together. To deliver on all our promises we need to grow our coaching team, if you think you can add value to our current delivery team and would like to be part of what we are building then please get in touch. For clarity for are looking to add around 3 coaches to the current cohort.

Before you put yourself forward it is important to consider whether your morals and principles fit with those of the department. We are a small team but our values are aligned, we act selflessly, we act with honesty and integrity and we are happy to put the athletes needs first as opposed to our own personal ambitions.

If you are interested in either becoming part of the delivery team or would like to simply come and spectate at a session then drop me an emailing outlining your ambitions and your motivation, you can reach me via email.

As always, if you have any questions or require any clarity please get in touch.

Steve Jennings – Operations Manager
British Taekwondo Sport Performance Department