Less than 100 days away from the biggest and extremely exciting Taekwon-Do event in 2012 – the ITF World Cup in Brighton!

AETF reporter
Katarzyna Rozwadowska

Email to KR

The tournament will take place in Brighton, England from 4th-7th October 2012. The place has been chosen during the World Championships in New Zealand at the ITF Congress on 11th March 2011. Shortly after preparation for this great event started. From today on it will be just three months before this grand competition to began.

I asked Mr Philip Lear, who hosts this prestigious tournament and is head of the organising committee as well as its ‘driving force’, to tell us a little bit about the preparation for the World Cup.

Mr Philip Lear

• How would you gauge the level of the preparation for the World Cup? What has already been done? What else is to be done?
  Well, it is a mammoth task, we have been working very hard now for over a year already and still there is so much we are doing. A Hotel agency is organising the accommodation, we have some sponsors, accommodation for the Umpires is organised, lunches for the competitors, flags ordered, photographic company booked, TV Agency planned and booked, lighting booked, party venue booked... I could go on... But still we are working hard on preparing everything for when people arrive.

• How are you doing to promote the tournament? I know there is a well run website and a Facebook page with a lot of information, news, and pictures as well as some videos. There is also some merchandise available in an online shop. I saw the World Cup banner during a number of TKD events recently (IIC in England, European Championships in Maribor, Slovenia). You also organized a very interesting ‘photo competition’. Could you tell us a little bit about all these things or is there anything else we should be on the lookout for?
  We have decided to try to take the promotion and marketing of this event to a new level. We have a Facebook page with almost 1,500 Likes, we put lots of updates there so as to motivate and excite people about Brighton, we try to showcase the many great things about the City as well as showing many great pictures of how beautiful Brighton is. We have posted some videos on the Website, but we are planning a set of introduction videos to watch before arriving at the World Cup, I have already made a Pilot of this called ‘Right Here, Right Now’ (after the song by Brighton resident and World famous DJ Fatboy Slim), this showed how to get from Gatwick to Brighton by train. We have taken the banner to many ITF/AETF events and on our Facebook page, every month, we are offering the chance to win a Ł100 voucher to spend at the World Cup for the person who gets the most "Likes" of their photo of them performing a Yop Chagi whilst wearing the World Cup T shirt somewhere spectacular where they live. There is more merchandise coming online now, that includes the official World Cup tie which is available with a 10% discount if ordered using the codePR001, we will also have some very different T shirts online soon as well as water bottles and towels. There will be even more merchandise during the World Cup.

Mr Philip Lear performing a Yop Chagi whilst wearing the World Cup T shirt, Brighton. Enter the competition with your photo!

• Could you tell us a little bit about the Organising Committee?
  As we get closer to the competition the committee grows, I have people assigned to various areas for example: Hotels, Transport, Airports, Sponsorship, Marketing, Party, Video/TV production, Staff and then probably most importantly the "BABS girls" (Bits And BobS), these girls are two of my students Suz Stopps and Karen Thorns who basically do all the small jobs that include contacting people, ordering things, getting good deals on things etc... They are brilliant!

• What is the Organizing Committee working on right now?
  So many things, but the main thing is the Marketing and Promotion of the event and organising all of the TV recording and Live Streaming, I hope that people will be impressed with what we have planned.

• What are you working on at the moment?
  This week Master Ferrando came to Brighton for a visit and I showed him around the venue and Brighton. I live about 40 minutes from Brighton, but I am there every Wednesday for meetings and updates, he had a good time and was impressed with what he saw.

• What is the most difficult part for the Organizing Committee regarding the organisation of such a big event?
  The hardest part is not knowing how many people will come. We are trying to prepare everything based on the numbers in Rive Del Garda in 2008, which is 1500 competitors. The biggest problem that we have is that although there are many hotels in Brighton, there are more Double rooms (One big bed) than any other type. We have booked every twin, triple and quad room in Brighton and still we need more. The hotels really are on a first come first served basis and it may be that competitors will need to share a big double bed during their stay. We have other hotels outside of Brighton as a contingency plan and then we would need to organise the transport for them to and from the hall every day. So to everyone planning to compete, you must get your hotel enquiry form in as soon as possible to have the chance to stay in Brighton.

• Can participants expect some ‘big changes’ as compared to the last World Cup?
  There are a few, first of all we are trialing a new event of Power Test where the competitor can choose from a list one hand and one foot technique as we just want to see lots of boards broken. Those who break the most in the first round will go through to the second round and can choose different or the same techniques. They will see a massive hall with lots of space, a large warm up area, and lots of stands to buy World Cup goodies. Each ring will be televised on live stream so families can watch from abroad and the centre ring will have two manned cameras with a large LED screen on the wall behind.

Competition Arena

• What kind of attractions can the participants expect during the tournament?
  First of all we are very pleased to announce that the author of the book "A Killing Art" Mr Alex Gillis will be at the World Cup to do a book signing, this is a great opportunity to meet and speak with him about his research and this most fascinating book based on the history of Taekwon-Do. The Umpires will be entertained at their hotel on the Thursday and Friday evenings and the Competitors and Spectators will have a chance to go and see live bands and lots of places of interest whilst they are there as well as visiting the famous lanes and all the little boutique shops in Brighton. We have a photographic company who will be taking action photos over the four days and then printing them on the spot with the World Cup logo and they can also be printed like on a magazine cover or with multiple images. We have a few surprises in store for people too, but the big thing is the party, in a club with seven rooms. This will be a real blast and everyone will definitely have a wonderful time.

• How many participants (competitors/supporters/referees) have already registered for the World Cup? Which countries have registered?
  We have approximately 800 competitors and spectators registered for hotels so far. At this moment we have 41 Clubs/Associations from 23 countries from all over the world, we are hoping to double the number of clubs and get at least 35 countries altogether. The Umpires are selected by the Tournament and Umpire Committee so we are unsure what the number is yet, but applications will be open until 30th August or until the full allocation of Umpires has been met.

• What made you choose Brighton of all places?
  Brighton is an exciting and vibrant City, also known as "little London". It's very easy to get to by boat, car, train and plane. It's a fun City to spend time in and the competitors will really have a wonderful time in Brighton from the day they arrive until the day they leave. Brighton really is one of the coolest Cities in Europe.

Brighton

Important dates.

We require 50% of the hotel to be paid by 15th July, after this date we cannot guarantee the prices of the rooms or even that there will be any rooms available. The remaining 50% must be paid by 15th August.

50% of the competition entry fee must be paid by 17th September, the remaining can be paid on arrival with all payments in US Dollars.

Competitors and Umpires need to arrive on 2nd October or very early on 3rd October as the Umpire meeting will start at 9am on the Wednesday, the weigh in will be started and completed on the same day.

Wednesday night is also the time for the ITF Congress from 7.30pm-9.30pm, then the competition will start on Thursday 4th at 9am with the opening ceremony.

On Saturday 6th we will have a finals night with a spectacular show, this will be from 7.30pm-9.30pm. Then Sunday evening from 9pm... it's the party!

Mr Lear is already famous for his remarkable organisational skills, professionalism, and perfectionism and the level of the preparation for the biggest tournament on ITF Taekwon-Do calendar in 2012 only proves it. The World Cup in Brighton seems to be not only a fantastic international Taekwon-Do competition, but also a great occasion to meet best competitors and good friends from around the world in best to imagine conditions in the beautiful and lively city Brighton.

To stay up-to-date with the World Cup news, please visit
the official website http://www.itfworldcup2012.com/
and Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/ITFWorldCup2012.

You will find there all important and helpful information and news.

I’m looking forward to seeing you (all of you!) in Brighton in October!

I am sure it will be a remarkably outstanding event!