News 2007

A succesful opening in Euro Cup
News 2007 >>

On October 6th-7th this autumn's highest standard competition, Euro Cup, took place at Metro Auto Arena in Tampere, Finland. It was also the opening of the new competition season for many top athletes. Many European and world champions participated and the level was very high in several categories. I participated rather to get some touch in competing again and to test my present condition than to reach for success. However, it didn't go too bad after all, for I won the 2nd degree patterns and got bronze in middle weight sparring.

The weight-in

The weight-in was supposed to be on Saturday morning, but all of a sudden there was a possibility to get on the scale already on Friday eve. Luckily the German team, that is Karima Houssa, had to go to registration and so I happened to be in the right place at the right time just by accident. Of course it was a pleasant surprise and luckily my weight was low enough too. The light training scheduled for the day was immediately removed for a later time as food went ahead in priorities. I must say that the All Europe Taekwon-Do Federation AETF deserves big blame for messing up with the weight-in, for many competitors would've loved to get it over with already on Friday eve. It should have been the same for everyone also in the name of objectivity, of course... Well, I was more than happy that I got this stressful part done already on Friday and was able to "refuel" probably for Saturday. 

Patterns

There's still a long way to go till the main competition of the season, the European Championships, and therefore many top European competitors came to Finland without a doubt to test their present level. My training has been ascending and sparring orientated after summer, in which light patterns went surprisingly well. First round against Damian Iwaniuk of Poland was rather stiff but it got better the forthcoming rounds. My second opponent, Ilya Baronov of Russia, messed up with the designated pattern by doing Choong Moo instead of Kwang Gae. And I guess Piotr Szwejkowski of Poland did also something wrong in the quarter final. I saw Szwejkowski as the toughest opponent based on the preliminary rounds. I met Poland's Milosz Moskaluk in the final and also he did the job a bit too easy for me by making a rather big mistake in the designated patterns Juche. I think I got pretty well power in my techniques but the lack of repetitions could be seen as occasional uncertainty. In the Juche ending the final also fatigue took the best sharpness but apart from that I'm pretty satisfied with my performance. However, I haven't yet seen it from video...

Sparring

Especially in sparring there were very tough names present. The world champion Jamil Chami of The Netherlands, as well as the vice world champion/European champion Cosmin Oprescu of Romania participated. Also Poland and Ireland sent many very good fighters in the ring. Jamil suffered a defeat against the winner of the division, Poland's Piotr Stykowski already in the preliminary rounds and also Cosmin lost to a Polish fighter Damian Iwaniuk in the first round. However, the Romanian dynamo told me he wasn't sad about the defeat, for he's not in his best condition yet and only came to get some touch on competing.

I had some trouble getting my fights going in the beginning. I couldn't get proper control on my tall Russian opponent in the first round. I should have run over they guy with hands but my head simply didn't work. The Polish opponent on the second round wasn't too tough either, but also in this one I should have been more convincing. The third round fight against Irland's William Guerin was probably my best tactically, for especially in the second round I used my opponents tactical mistakes for my own benefit. I also managed to score with high kicks. In the semi-final I faced Petr Prinkovskiy of Russia, who was clearly a tougher one according to his previous fights. For a Russian his style was surprisingly calm and he didn't storm around too much with punches, but rather waited for opportunities for counter attacks. Especially his spinning back kick (dwit chagi) worked quite fine. I managed to score a couple of times with a front kick to mid section but often at the same time the opponent hit me to the face, which of course is more visible to the umpires. Based on the marks on my body I also got some other hits during the fight. The fight was rather even and I don't think the point difference was that big, but I must admit Petr was the right one to win this one. It's a shame for me, for Prinkovskiy was very much beatable. I made some very bad mistakes in the ring but all together my performance wasn't that bad. Tactical depth and brains are needed in the future and of course more touch to fighting in competitions.

Competition sauna and friends

As the competition day was done, got Nokia's (the town, not the company) own boy Joonas "Judas" Helassalo a brilliant idea about going to sauna. The boy (according to Finnish law nowadays a man) took care that the sauna of the venue was heaten and I invited friends to join us. Some guys seemed to have second thoughts about this, especially when I told that according to Finnish way it's not men and women together and you go to sauna without any clothes. Finally old friend Marcin Wronowski from Poland and new acquaintance William Guerin from Ireland had the courage to come along. The sauna was very good and indeed felt nice after a long day. Our guests were really nice fellows and we had good talks as you should in sauna. We wondered at the good condition of the Finnish roads, the narrow streets of Ireland and the busy traffic of Warsaw. And of course "talked Taekwon-Do." Big thanks to the guys for the visit, I hope we'll see them again in the competitions to come.

I also spent time with my good friend Karima Houssa from Germany and the dynamic duo from Norway, Gunnar Rugsveen and Aleksander Aronsen. The boys bought a car back home and took a road trip to Finland to the competition. Shortly told the trip included getting late from a ferry, sleeping a good night's sleep of 3 hours in an industrial area in Sweden and arriving at the competition venue five minutes before the beginning of pattern competition. Taking this into consideration the guys' performances went well, even though they didn't succeed in patterns or sparring. However, in traditional sparring the fellows took silver with a lot of improvisation in their routine. Really nice dudes indeed and I heard that they also got home more or less safely, though their car began to give signs of resigning from the service on their way back. All in all it was great to see friends in TKD here in my home country, especially when for a change I had some time to chat with them too. Unfortunately I had to leave the after party early, coz Monday was a regular day at work.