Koryo Taekwondo's Isa Al Amirtaha spars with Gary Ford from Tigers Taekwondo.
Photo by
Rechelle Zammit
The Regional Taekwondo Championships were a kick for all involved on Sunday and there was no man prouder than Sammy Rachele.
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Celebrating 20 years of the Bev Walker Memorial Trophy, the tournament typically held at Melbourne’s Koryo Taekwondo Centre ventured north to Shepparton Sports Stadium, where the Shepparton-based Koryo club would host the martial arts event.
“We’ve been running the Bev Walker Memorial Trophy for the last 20 years and we’ve always run it at the Koryo Taekwondo Centre, although previously at the Melbourne-based centre,” Rachele said.
“This year we thought we’d do it at the (Shepparton) stadium and give the other people who come from Melbourne greater facilities and more room to move and it worked out fantastic.
“Overall, it was a really successful competition.
“Lots of clubs came from Melbourne, lots of new clubs that have never visited Shepparton before.
“I’m hoping over the next few years we can build on it and make it something the people of Shepparton want to certainly benefit from, as well as us.”
While Rachele held excitement for hosting the anniversary date of the tournament, the owner of the taekwondo centre holds greater enthusiasm for how the event will shape Shepparton’s future in the sport.
Rachele believes the home venue of the tournament has bridged the gap for emerging taekwondo competitors and could be the step in the direction that enables juniors into believing they can make the leap towards greater competitions in the future.
“It helps for the kids, especially in Shepparton and my local kids that are probably a little bit held back or not so confident and don’t really want to go to Melbourne or interstate for their first competition,” Rachele said.
“So for grassroots, for someone to build their confidence to be able to compete in a real competition and do it in their own home town, it is a good way to bridge the gap.
“Now they can say they’ve experienced it and taken on competitors from other parts of Victoria and now they understand how it works.
“We had international referees there and their judging was second to none.
“Now hopefully they take the next step and say ‘yeah, next year we want to go somewhere else for a comp’, try to get to nationals and the further steps of being good enough to represent their country and go overseas.”
However, it takes a village to raise the next eventual taekwondo champion and Rachele was clear that the event wouldn’t have gone ahead without hours of volunteer help from the Shepparton taekwondo community.
“I could not have done this without the help of volunteers and people from the club – members, students, parents, carers – I’m really humbled with the help I got from everybody that all came and spent time,” he said.
“We’ve been planning for this for a couple of months and just for everyone to train up, meeting at the centre every Thursday night.
“Even to have the computer technicians learn to run the electronic, automatic scoring system was vital.
“Without those people the competition wouldn’t have happened.”
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