Martial arts: Gold medals at championships

Jun 11 2009 by Eric MacKinnon, West Lothian Courier

THE SCOTLAND Tae-Kwon Do squad had five West Lothian martial artists among its pack when it dropped in on the resort of Umag, Croatia, for the 20th annual European Championships.

Team captain Liz McKenna 5th Degree was joined by Julie Scott 4th Degree, Nicole Brown 3rd Degree and Pamela Gow 2nd Degree in the ladies team, while Allan McLeish 1st Degree was selected for the male team — all under the watchful eye of experienced national team coach Master David Brown.

In the individual patterns, Pamela Gow took Bronze in the 2nd Degree patterns and Nicole Brown was crowned European Champion in the 3rd Degree finals.

To her massive disappointment, a hesitation cost Liz McKenna European Gold and she had to settle for silver in the 5th Degree patterns final.

Julie was defeated in the semi-finals of the 4th Degree patterns in a match that should have been the final and took bronze for in patterns and under-52kg sparring.

Liz fought to European Bronze but unfortunately an eye injury prevented her from progressing further in the under-63kg sparring section. However, she added bronze in the female power test and Nicole added another European title to her total by easily winning the female special technique.

The male and female teams really pulled out all the stops in the team events and the ladies took a placing in every discipline tested and such Scottish success is unprecedented at these championships.

The Scots squad took home: bronze in the team sparring, and silver in the team power and special technique and were crowned European Champions in the team patterns event, outshining England in the final.

The men’s team fared almost as well as the ladies, taking bronze in the team sparring, defeated by a top-notch Dutch team in the semi-finals, silver in the team patterns in a close final, bronze in the team power and then European gold in the team special technique event.

Master David Brown was extremely pleased with the overall performance against the best in Europe with over 20 countries in attendance — especially with daughter Nicole’s double European Gold victories — but felt that on a few occasions the decisions were close and unfortunate not to go Scotland’s way.

Despite the enormous success of the championships the group will not be resting on their laurels and have pledged to continue training hard with their sights now set on more international medal glory in next year’s World Championships in South Korea.

The students currently train in Armadale and Bathgate on Mondays and Fridays.

For details of classes please phone 01501 732469 or email dbrowntkd@aol.com.

Check out the website www.ultimatetaekwon-do.co.uk for more action shots from the championships.

The Scotland squad were part-sponsored by Mr David Martin whose Ross Martin Projects based in Armadale, and Rotech partnership business based in Grangemouth, supported the ladies team.

Easyfit tyre company, based in Armadale, part-sponsored Pamela Gow to attend the championships.