Big Event About To Hit Tauranga

Big Event About To Hit Tauranga

Tauranga will be the scene of some top sporting competition later this month when the 34th ITF Taekwon-Do New Zealand national championships come to the city bringing with them around 350 competitors as well as another 300 coaches and officials.

The national ITF Taekwon-Do championships will be held 26-27 July at the Queen Elizabeth Youth Stadium with competitors coming from Northland to as far south as Dunedin. The first ITF Taekwon-Do national championships was held in Palmerston North in 1981

Ages of competitors range from 7- 57 years and from novice to World Champions Some of the current and past world champions will be competing include Carl Van Roon, Mark Trotter, Melissa Timperley and Estee Speirs .

Many of the New Zealand representatives will be competing to try and cement their place in the New Zealand team for the next world champs to be held in Italy in 2015. Others will be looking for tough competition as a build-up tournament to compete at the World Cup in Jamaica in August 2014.

Disciplines at the competition include sparring, power breaking (board breaking), special techniques, patterns and team events.

Based on country medal counts, New Zealand finished third last year at the world championships in Spain. Prior to the Spain hosted world championships New Zealand was the champion team when the tournament was held in Wellington in 2011.

ENDS

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