Granite City Taekwondo returned to competitive action with a bang as they won 33 medals and a team trophy at their first event since February 2020.
The Lanarkshire Open Championships, which took place on February 4 and 5, was the first competition the Aberdeen club have competed in for almost three years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Granite City took 20 athletes, with ages varying from six years old to some in their 20s, down to Wishaw for the two-day competition which included Poomsae (patterns) and Kyorugi (sparring) events.
The taekwondo club’s master Lyndzie Jeffrey was delighted with her athletes’ success, and praised their resolve after enduring a tough few years where training had to be adapted.
She said: “It’s a fantastic achievement for the club. It was one of the biggest teams I’ve taken down to a competition in our history, which is reflected in the number of medals.
“During Covid, we continued to train via Zoom so students could keep their skills up, so we facilitated taekwondo from their living rooms.
“It was a different form of teaching that we all had to adapt to – to maintain the standard of the club, so that when we returned to competitions we were at a high standard to win medals.”
Following their first competition, the taekwondo master plans to host an interclub competition to give her athletes more exposure to a competitive environment ahead of the national championships.
She said: “We’ll be doing a small interclub competition soon to give more students experience, so we can have a bigger team to take to the Scottish Championships in June.
“It’s important for them to be exposed to a competitive environment, and we’ll be doing it at the Tillydrone Community Centre, which is their taekwondo home.
“We’ve come back with the 33 medals and we’re hoping in June the students can come home with more medals – and we can have national champions within the club.”
Conversation