The Taekwondo World Championship is happening in May and Canada needs to send a team. Only the country’s top black belt competitors are invited to fight for a spot at the Team Trials next weekend (April 7) in Ottawa.

This elite tournament will deliver some of those closest and fastest Taekwondo matches in Canadian history and is a must-see for any Taekwondo fan or student. Each of the 16 (8 male and 8 female) divisions compete in round-robin format, so unlike the National Championships (which are single-elimination), every fighter will face every other in their division. Only the day’s best fighters win a spot on Team Canada and a ticket to Beijing this May.

Men’s Bantamweight is the division to watch; here’s the lineup:

Ali Ghafour (Ontario) This 2006 Bantamweight champion is cool and calm in the ring. A very technical fighter, he uses his extreme speed to get a lead and then draws on his experience to hold it tight. Ali swept the large Olympic Bantam division in the January Pan Am Team Trials.

Sean Vrtacic (British Columbia) Sean is the youngest in the division but has proven himself on both the national and international level. In 2006 Sean retired from Juniors (A division: 13-17 years) as National Champion, and won bronze at the World Junior Championships the same year. He made waves when he took the National Bantamweight Champion title from Ali Ghafour at the 2007 Canadian Championships in sudden death overtime.

Yannick Lebreux (Quebec) A spirited, natural, and smart fighter, Yannick is a dangerous contender. After a lengthy recovery from a broken foot Yannick put up a good fight but lost to Ali Ghafour at the January Pan Am Team Trials. Yannick can pull some tricky moves and if he avoids injury could win the division.

Bernard Lorde (Ontario) The fourth and final Bantam contender, Bernard is the least experienced and is not favoured to win this year. Yannick beat Bernard 10-3 at the last Canadian Championships — but in Taekwondo, anything can happen…

Other hot divisions:

Female Fly: Olympian Ivett Gonda (BC) seeks retribution for her sudden death loss to Annie-Pier Turcotte (QC) that left her in 2nd place at the last Canadian Championships.

Men’s Welter: Sebastien Michaud (QC) is hot lately but faces a rematch with Joo-Han Cha (AB), who lost a fierce 4-3 fight with Michaud at the Canadian Championships.

» All match schedule: WTF Taekwondo Association of Canada
» 2007 WTF World Taekwondo Championships site

Annie-Pier Turcott knocked Gonda off the podium's pinnacle in flyweight. Will there be payback at the Team Trails next month? (C.P. photo)

In a fast-action sport like Taekwondo, no athlete can afford to rest on their laurels. The 2007 Canadian Championships in Montreal this weekend proved that hard-won national titles can be lost with a single kick — or with only the luck of the draw.

For the past four years Ivett Gonda has been a fixture on the podium’s top spot, so it raised more than a few brows to see her defeated by Quebec’s Annie-Pier Turcott in the flyweight finals. Turcott has been hot on Gonda’s heels for some time and was glowing with confidence from her recent gold medal performance at the U.S. Open.

Sean Vrtacic (BC) overtakes Ali Ghafour (ON) in bantamweight (C.P. photo)

In the turbulent Bantamweight division the final came down to Ontario’s Ali Ghafour vs. B.C.’s Sean Vrtacic. In just his second year in Seniors (17+ years), Sean fought Ali to sudden death overtime and after several fast exchanges was scored the winning point for gold.

The favoured lightweight J.F. Lebreux arrived to the game injured and was ultimately outplayed by fellow Quebecer Chris Iliesco in sudden death — a fantastic result for Iliesco who has never placed nationally, but has now earned a spot at the World Championship Team Trials this April in Ottawa.

An early upset for Ontario was Akmal Farah’s tense match with Quebec’s Evangelos Lygeros. Lygeros is an experienced and passionate competitor who fully used his counter-attack skills to keep control of this match. Lygeros was later defeated by the rapid-fire style of Adam Phamhung. In the end, B.C.’s Kevin Yang took the featherweight gold.

Evangelos Lygeros (QC) managed to keep Akmal Farah off the podium but was later also eliminated (C.P. photo)

Male middleweight saw François Coulombe-Fortier recapture the title from 2006 Champion Radomir Samardzic. Newfoundland heavyweight Reginald Lawrence beat Olivier Pineau and then took an early lead on three-time national champion Eric Ahn, but had to settle for silver in the end.

Coulombe-Fortier retakes middleweight (C.P. photo)

Ashley Castaneda can still deliver (C.P. photo)

Maybe the most entertaining matches were delivered by Master Ashley Castaneda (a World Championship and Pan-American medallist) who returned to challenge the current lightweights some 20 years his junior. Castaneda’s legendary spirit showed strong as he had no trouble questioning the referees’ calls, and the refs had no trouble penalizing him for it. Castaneda was beat in the quarter-finals by 2006 Silver medallist Chris Hodgins.

This game’s MVP Award was well-deserved by both B.C.’s Yvette Yong (I’d rather fight a rabid pit bull than this girl), and Sébastien Michaud who cleaned up in welterweight for the second year straight and recently won gold at the U.S. Open.

MVPs: Yvette Yong (BC), Sébastien Michaud (QC)

And which provincial team took the most gold? Combat Canada readers predicted that Quebec would win over Ontario (34.2% and 28.8% of voters respectively). While Quebec certainly placed strong, Team Ontario narrowly won with seven gold medals, followed by Quebec with six and British Columbia with three.

If you’re wondering when the National pattern competition happened… it didn’t. Seniors Poomsae will find a home in the Canadian Hanmadang Games starting this year. Poomsae will remain an event in the Junior Canadian Championships, which happen this June in New Brunswick.

» Event Photos

» Results: Fin, Bantam, Light, Middle

» Results: Fly, Feather, Welter, Heavy

» Nationals video – reader submitted