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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

2007 WTF Canadian Senior Championships
Female
Fin	Yvette Yong (BC)	Gold
Fly	Annie-Pier Turcott (QC)	Gold
Bantam	Shannon Condie (ON)	Gold
Feather	Melissa Pagnotta (ON)	Gold
Light	Karine Sergerie (QC)	Gold
Welter	Andrea St. Bernard (ON)	Gold
Middle	Dasha Peregoudova (ON)	Gold
Heavy	Dominique Bosshart (ON)	Gold
Male
Fin	Kael Pinto (ON)	Gold
Fly	Jocelyn Addison (QC)	Gold
Bantam	Sean Vrtacic (BC)	Gold
Feather	Kevin Yang (BC)	Gold
Light	Chris Iliesco (QC)	Gold
Welter	Sébastien Michaud (QC)	Gold
Middle	François Coulombe-Fortier (QC)	Gold
Heavy	Eric Ahn (ON)	Gold

» Event Photos

» Results: Fin, Bantam, Light, Middle

» Results: Fly, Feather, Welter, Heavy

» Nationals video – reader submitted

This article was published on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.