By Ivana Qartika
The 10th Perak Taekwon-Do Championship 2019 was held on July 27 and 28 at Aeon Midtown Falim, Lahat. The completion, organised by the Martial Arts Taekwon-Do Association of Perak was participated by over a thousand exponents surpassing last year’s record of 700.
Present at the opening ceremony were MP for Ipoh Timor Wong Kah Woh and International Global Taekwon-Do Federation founder Dato’ Seri Dr Sabree Salleh.
Incepted in 2009, participants compete in the following categories – individual pattern, individual sparring and team pattern.
Following the opening ceremony was a self-defence demonstration featuring a female subduing two male attackers and team patterns and sparring performances by students from Perak Girls’ Secondary School and SMJK Poi Lam.
Teo Kar Sai, 20, and Yip Shui Ling, 18, from Rukun Tetangga Taman Loke Lim were adjudged the winners in the male and female divisions, respectively.
Martial Arts Taekwon-Do Association of Perak chairperson Khoo Bu Leong stated that participants’ quality had improved over the years.
“Female participants are on the rise, which is why we’re seeing more of them in competitions these days compared to male participants,” said Khoo during a press conference.
“They’ve achieved much more today because the participants took the opportunity to enter as many competitions as possible. It’s good publicity for us. Hopefully, we’ll get more chances to compete in international championships.”
Asked about the hardships faced, Khoo replied, “It’s difficult to allocate budget for normal tournaments, as funds are hard to come by. But support from the public is most encouraging. We’re grateful to those who made it possible for us to be where we’re today. Given the support, we look forward to hosting more events in the future.”
Malaysian Taekwan-do exponents had won accolades at the 2019 ITF Asian Championships and Asian Cup held in Kyrgyzstan, obtaining 11 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze medals.
