Newsletter Newsletter 1/2017 Open Dutch 2017, top level again!

On Sunday the 29th of January it was finally time for the next edition of the Open Dutch Taekwon-do championships in Best at sports hall Naestebest. We started the tournament with 568 competitors from 12 different countries from all over Europe and even competitors from Argentina. I think it is safe to say that we had a very strong competitors field, one of the best we have seen so far.

After a warm welcome to many special guest and competitors, Master Willy van de Mortel opened the tournament. Head Referee of Hall A was Master Coos van den Heuvel and the head referee of Hall B was Emiel Kloor. We started the tournament with the patterns competition. There were some short delays during the start, but after some issues had been solved we were back on track quickly again.

The full results of the day can be found here: http://open-dutch.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Results.pdf

We want to point out a couple of the results in particular. First of all team-sparring, we witnessed some great matches. Quin-W Clare-Shan-TKD won the Junior Male up to 3rd Dan category. Taekwon-Do Academy Graziella Idili won the Junior Female up to 3rd category. Difesa Sports won the Senior Male up to 6th Dan and Rivervalley-Ashbourne ITF won the Senior Female up to 6th Dan. We were very impressed by the energy and motivation during these matches. Spectular, to say the least!

For patterns it was again Lylian Doulay who won the gold medal in Best, just like the 2015 and 2016 edition. Senior Male up to 2nd Dan was won by Cody Oranje and we very much enjoyed the Difesa Sports final with Job Maassen en Andres van Duijnhoven. Andres won gold in the Youth up to 1st Dan category. Well done everybody!

Sparring was very spectacular. Some really high quality finals and semi finals. Senior Male up to 70KG for instance, Nejc Gazvoda managed to win gold, beating Brian van de Brand in the final. Another category that stood out was Senior Female up to 68KG (up to 6th Dan), all three medals went to Rivervalley-Ashbourne ITF, with Maeve Magee bringing home the gold.

Overall winners of the tournaments were Taekwon-Do team Vrijsen / van Buel Sport for the colored belts category and ITF Norway for the black belts category!

For all photos and videos, visit our website www.open-dutch.nl or our facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/OpenDutch2016/

(700+ pictures by Duncan Epping)
(for those who don’t use facebook)
(1700+ pictures by Jurgen Spierings)
(70+ by Team Carvalho)

Special thanks to all volunteers, first aid group, Master Harry Vones, sports bar, the venue and everybody who helped us during this fantastic weekend. It takes a lot of work and dedication from many volunteers to pull off an event like this and this would not be possible without you! We hope we can count on you again next year!

The 2018 edition will be held on the 28th of January, please note this down in your calendar. We also decided to move to a new location, Difesa Sport’s home town: Helmond. More on that subject later.

We want to thank all of our visitors from abroad and we hope to see you all at the “Open Dutch Championships 2018”.

Master Willy van de Mortel

Open Dutch Taekwon-do Championships