Newsletter 2/2014 Hungarian National Championships
The 29th Senior and 20th Junior European Taekwon-do Championships are 1 week away. The registration of the teams is completed, in all countries it had been decided by now who has the right to compete on this event. There are already 30 national teams registered at the official registration site. You can find it at http://euro2014.pztkd.lublin.pl/, as usual. Present at the Euros will be also Grand Master Pablo Trajtenberg - ITF President, Master Juan Ferrando - ITF Secretary General and GM Hector Marano - Chairman of the ITF Technical Committee and many others VIPs.
As the preparation of the teams is getting to the final phase, we asked around a few participating countries how the preparation is going. Some countries have shared a few secret details of their progress.
Team Belgium
Concerning the preparation for the EC in Italy, this year ITF-Belgium is in a transition period. Some of our most experienced competitors "retired" recently, e.g. Bistra Dencheva (she gave birth to a daughter last year), Erik Van Hoeck and Patrick Crevecoeur (36 and 37 years old).
On the other hand two competitors (Pablo Pascuzzo and Alex Walter) are injured and will not form part of the 2014's team. That's why this year the Belgian team is consisting of only 5 competitors, but anyhow, also the previous years we preferred quality over quantity.
But we're very glad to welcome some new members, 3 juniors who get the time to grow and gain experience on the EC in Italy. Also one of our competitors, Hans Rombaut is back in the national team after missing the 2013 EC and WC as he became father last year. He became team member in 2002, is 2 times European Champion and won several bronze medals on European and World Championships. We're very glad he's back, and he can be a big help for the national coach and the new team members. His objectives changed when becoming a dad, but we're convinced he can still win a medal.
Also Andreea Musca, who is a senior female team member has potential to win at least one medal. She's still quite young, but has been part of the team for 8 years and she already was European Champion in the past, and won some nice medals on ECs. She will compete in senior individual pattern III. degree and individual women's sparring, -50kg.
ITF-Belgium has a new head coach, Bob Wigman, who's doing a great job, working very structured and organized. The training sessions with the team members are partly more individual, and the coach is getting assistance by the instructors of these students.
Team Germany
Currently the team is in the hot phase of the final preparations and we have seen many of the members in the last tournaments with an impressive training state. In principle there are no professional athletes in Germany in Taekwon-Do. So doing TKD alongside school and jobs the weekend times are the important occasions to find together for the team and the coaches.
On work days the athletes train in the evening in their home clubs and are additionally ordered to some weekend appointments by the team of the national coaches.
During the training of the national team all athletes are supervised intensively and long by the national coaches and over that the athletes become allocated to different disciplines. They take this opportunity to work very meticulously and hard. A major strength in the preparation is the great experience of the national coaches. They get even internationally inexperienced newcomers to fit the team quite soon on a great level.
But finally the training is firmly rooted in the structures of Taekwon-Do. The training of the national team is therefore not specifically stated, but nevertheless it is very intense. As a result it is never a collection of individual athletes from Germany that travels to the international tournaments, but always a very strong team, in which everyone supports the other. This was represented in the past very often in the results especially of the team competitions.
Team Hungary
Team Hungary has recent changes in the system of the National team - there is a new head coach for the national team Csaba Békássy who have just got the promotion for the V. degree. The national team’s training sessions are conducted as seminars having specialized trainings for the ones who are participating the different categories. During the last seminar Mr. Békássy has invited a few trainers from other sports to help us improve in precision in sparring. The last session together was at the last weekend, the team have spent a whole weekend next to Lake Balaton to make the final preparations and to bring the team members even closer together like on a team building event.
Team Netherlands
The preparation for the Euros started directly after the World Championships in Benidorm. During the year there were central trainings during the whole year in the national Sportcentre. The selected members had to take part in several (inter)national tournaments to demonstrate that they belong to the best of their category. From Friday the 11th of April till Sunday the 13th there was a special training camp to get everyone totally prepared for the Euros in Riccione.
Team Poland
The first important sport event in 2014 for the Polish National Team was the winter squad camp which took place in Olympic Sport Center in Spała, in the central of Poland. The COS Spala which gathers many athletes from different sports, hosted the Polish Female National Team from 14th to 21st February 2014 and the Male National Team from 13th to 16th February 2014.
The competitors could check their form and skills in two important tournaments, the first Polish Cup held on 7-9th March 2014 in Ciechanów and the Polish Grand Prix held on 28-30th March in Rybnik. Taking into account the results after both tournaments the coaches decided about the line-up of the Polish National Team.
On April 12th both teams started the National Squad Camp. This time it takes place in Olympic Sport Center in Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains. On April 21st - directly after the camp the team will travel by bus to the European Championships.
The National Team Preparation can be followed under the link: www.pztkdlive.pl (in Polish language).
Team Italy
After the success at the World Championships 2013 in Spain (2 gold, 8 silver and 11 bronze medals), the Italian Team immediately began to prepare for next Euros 2014 in Riccione with passion, concentration and enthusiasm.
Mr. Leandro Iagher, head coach, along with the other national coaches Master Cammarota, Mr. Iovane, Mr. Saccomanno and Ms. Riccio, planned the squad trainings organizing special week-end camps every month. Italy is a small but very long and narrow country and to go from North to South involves time and effort. In addition this year the national team hosts some athletes from Sardinia, our beautiful island off the western coast of Italy, and for them is even more complicated!
Many competitors joined the training sessions from the very beginning and, after a long evaluation, 50 were selected as members of our National team so that we will participate in the European Championship with full male and female, junior and senior teams.
The male pattern senior team meets almost once a week as all the competitors live in the same area, whilst the other teams meet twice a month for the coreography rehearsals.
The coaches assigned a lot of "home work" to the competitors in order to have them in good athletic shape at every training. In addition, the weight has been checked each time to have a close control on the sparring categories.
In order to be ready for the ring, all the sparring competitors participated in several Kickboxing tournaments recording excellent results and gaining experience.
GM Wim Bos always coordinated the trainings and the camps bringing his precious experience, knowledge and passion.
Italy is ready!
We have just got some glimpse of some of the National Teams, but this is far from a complete list. According to the registration site there will be more than 31 countries with 568 competitors taking part this year’s Euros in Riccione, Italy.
I would like to thank all the help I have got from the communications officers from the associations.
See you in Italy!
