It’s hard to believe that for all the past and present talent in Canada, the country has never won gold at a Taekwondo World Championships. Well that’s no longer true. Quebec’s Karine Sergerie smashed the dry spell with a stellar performance at this year’s Championships in Beijing, and few could argue that anybody deserves it move than her.

The 2007 Championship was a record-breaker for size with over 1,400 elite athletes and officials from 116 countries in attendance. The event follows Olympic Taekwondo rules with one exception: eight weight divisions are run instead of four, allowing more participants and tighter competition.

The truth is that despite having a very strong Canadian Team this year, Karine was a favourite all along for many Taekwondo fans. She had already collected silver and bronze World Championship medals (2003 and 2005) and had the experience and conviction to win the complete set. But even more amazing than the feat itself was how she accomplished it. After disposing of her first several opponents Sergerie met Korea’s Park Hye Mi in the finals. By the end of the second round Karine was losing 0-3, a desperate situation in the best of times, but more so against an experienced opponent of this caliber. “I trusted my coach and kept patient” Karine said of her bout. “Deep down I knew I needed to follow the plan I made before the match and it worked out well.” Her aggressive plan worked well enough to tie the score 3-3, sending them to a very tense sudden death which Karine won.

It was another Quebecer that put the men’s team on the map. Sebastién Michaud blasted his way onto the Canadian scene two years ago with his first National gold and has been untouchable ever since. In Beijing he won his first three matches but was stopped by USA’s Olympic gold medalist Steven Lopez in the quarter-finals, putting Michaud on the podium with a bronze medal. The last time Canada’s male team scored a World Championship medal was 14 years ago, a fact that illustrates the extreme level of competition involved.

Other Canadian athletes were stopped just short of the podium. Yvette Yong (Women’s Finweight), Courtney Condie (Women’s Welterweight), Dasha Peregoudova (Women’s Middleweight), and J.F. Lebreux (Men’s Lighweight) all placed in the top 8 of their divisions. The outstanding overall performance of our Women’s Team placed it third in the team standings. In a related matter it was Canadian Women’s Team Coach Jamie Dossantos that received the Best Female Coach Award (best Male Coach went to Spain’s Francisco Martin).

The next major event is the 2007 Pan Am Games in Brazil, but all eyes at this point are on the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. In the Canadian Taekwondo ranking point system Karine Sergerie is firmly in the lead, giving her the greatest chance to qualify her division for the Olympic Games and to ultimately represent Canada there.

Canadian Team Results: 2007 WTF Taekwondo World Championships, Beijing
Female
Fin	Yvette Yong (BC)	Top 8
Fly	Ivett Gonda (BC)	Top 16
Bantam	Shannon Condie (ON)	Top 16
Feather	Melissa Pagnotta (ON)	Top 64
Light	Karine Sergerie (QC)	Gold
Welter	Courtney Condie (ON)	Top 8
Middle	Dasha Peregoudova (ON)	Top 8
Heavy	Dominique Bosshart (ON)	Top 16
Male
Fin	Maikol Pinto (ON)	Top 64
Fly	Jocelyn Addison (QC)	Top 16
Bantam	Ali Ghafour (ON)	Top 64
Feather	Akmal Farah (ON)	Top 64
Light	J.F. Lebreux (QC)	Top 8
Welter	Sébastien Michaud (QC)	Bronze
Middle	Michael Kitschke (MB)	Top 32
Heavy	Eric Ahn (ON)	Top 32

» Event Photos
» 2007 WTF World Taekwondo Championships site
» 2007 World Championships DVDs

This article was published on Thursday, May 24th, 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.