The 2011 National Taekwondo Championships were held at the Winnipeg Convention Centre recently.
Kees Yorkton was represented by 11 athletes out of a total of 14 athletes from Saskatchewan. Each competition day featured different categories or events.
The junior black belt nationals were held Saturday and Sunday. The top three medalists in the Junior "A" group will move on to a Pan-Am team trials in late July which will be held in conjunction with a Pan-Am Games team trial.
There are three age divisions: Junior "A" for 15 to 17 year-olds, Junior "B" for 13 to 14 year-olds and Junior "C" for 11 and 12 year-olds.
Yorkton athletes in the Junior "A" division were Hayley Yaworski, Shane Varjassy and Francis Bazin. The competition was a double elimination format.
Yaworski had two tough matches and had to withdraw because of an ankle injury.
Varjassy had some great games. He gained much welcome experience through out the three contests.
Bazin had great results going undefeated through five matches to win the gold medal. He will advance to the Junior Pan-Am team trials during the summer.
In Junior "B" Black belts Samuel Lohnes, Kathryn Lohnes and Clark Bazin all captured gold medals to be crowned national champions.
In the junior "C" division Austin Stinson claimed a the silver medal.
In the junior B coloured belt division held Friday, Devon Frounfelter had three matches, winning a silver medal in the advanced category.
Wednesday and Thursday featured the adult division. Matthew Bodnaryk, Rae Ashcroft and Autumn Ashcroft competed in this event.
The gold medalists from the adult division will represent Canada at the World Championships in Korea next May.
Bodnaryk recently returned to competition after a two year sabbatical. His first match was against a strong competitor from Ontario who won the silver medal. Bodnaryk lost his match by a score of 5-4. Three of the points that he gave away were based on the same technical error. He should easily be able to correct the error for future games. He finished out of the medals in his three contests.
Autumn Ashcroft had a slow start in her first game but finished with a 1-0 win. She just got stronger throughout every match. She completed five games undefeated, dominating her opponents in all the games.
Her final match was against Alberta's Cecillia Lee who represented Canada in 2010. At this 2011 National Championships Ashcroft defeated Lee by a score of 7-2 in a very controlled and convincing manner.
Ashcroft will represent Canada at the 2011 World Championships in Korea.
This is the first time since 1999 that Saskatchewan has had an athlete represent Canada on the national team. "This is a major accomplishment and we are very proud of Autumn," says Master Wayne Mitchell of Yorkton Kee's Taekwondo.
Assisting the team this past week were coaches: Master Wayne Mitchell, Rae Ashcroft and special trainer Chris Lohnes. Susanne Mitchell was assigned as a referee for the Junior event.
In summary, Yorkton won an impressive record five gold medals and two silver medals.
