2022 Club Championships - Results

The News!

Newmarket wins 2022 Championship trophy with 9 gold! Congrats to Master Shirly and Instructor Kaisa and their team!

Newmarket wins Players Trophy 2022 with 51.52%! Congrats to Master Shirly and Instructor Kaisa and their team!

Johannah Whittle 2022 Club Champion!

Master Mark Buxton breaks 9 tiles!

William Vuong highest kick 255 cm!

Poomsae
Power Breaking
High Kick
+21 black belt officials!

PHOTO ALBUM
 & VIDEO
INCLUDED BELOW

Report Summary

20th ANNIVERSARY

This is the 20th Club Championship event!  For a complete history on past winners you can click here: Past Events

THE TEAMS

The Sun Bae Taekwondo Championships were held at Mt Gravatt, Brisbane, Saturday 15 October 2022. The teams:

• Team Newmarket: Master Shirly & Instructor Kaisa (defending 2021 champions).
• Team Kenmore: Master Shirly (2021 runner up)
• Team The Gap: Instructor Ben & Instructor Nicole (2021 3rd place)
• Team Regents Park: Master Mark
• Team Toowoomba: Instructor John
• Team Middle Park: Instructor Brendan
• Team Mt Gravatt: Master Shirly

It was a beautiful day, the weather perfect for competition. The poomsae (patterns) division operated on 3 courts to host 182 players — all Sun Bae students. Seven teams competed in a knock out style event, ensuring the eventual winner worked hard to get to the end. The largest division this year was White - Junior (under 10) with 25 players.  

THE CHAMPIONSHIP - PATTERNS

The traditional format of the event continued again this year, including match play patterns. This format follows a "knock out" style whereby only the winner of each match moves on to the next round. Fitness and concentration is often a good asset to have in order to ultimately win through, especially where divisions have a high number of entrants. And match play affords the chance to perform multiples times. But it really is luck of the draw as new Team Kenmore black belt William found out — his very tight performance knocked out by eventual Club Champion Johannah.

Notably, the Championship is only decided upon the patterns contest, the winning team decided by the highest number of gold medals. Silver and bronze are still utilised, but only in the event of a tie. In addition to the Championship Trophy, teams also competed for the Players Trophy - decided upon the best percentage of medals won (gold, sliver, bronze) versus total team players. It is our profound hope that the Players Trophy might afford smaller teams a stronger chance to compete. There were 23 divisions in patterns split over rank (black, red III, red, blue, yellow and white) and age (junior, intermediate, adult and masters). Whilst there is a winner for each division, a Club Champion was also decided for each colour belt (the winner of each age division plays off). Note: Club Instructors are not allowed to compete in the patterns or be crowned as "Club Champion", for obvious reasons. 

FULL REPORT BELOW

POWER BREAKING - ROOF TILES

Competition power breaking is tested on terracotta roof tiles, a somewhat traditional test, but only for advanced students. Sun Bae uses Terracotta tiles because they remain consistent in strength over time, unlike cement tiles which are very easy to break when they are new (and unbreakable when they are old). It is important NOT to try breaking without your instructor. The tiles, once broken, can be quite sharp and can cut the wrists. It can be quite dangerous.

Every year our competitors are faced with a decision upon how many they should stack. Too many and you can lose power. Not enough and you are might be left wondering. In addition, an entrant is awarded a bonus tile on their score if they completely break a stack. It is always an exciting event, with spectators treated to a great display of traditional martial arts. On the note of tradition, Master Bradley informs us that roof tiles were always part of the original black belt testing in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Sun Bae has continued this tradition late into the 90's whereupon it became very hard to actually find the right roof tiles. Sun Bae now keeps its reserve of tiles just for the Championship.  

FULL REPORT BELOW

HIGH KICK - JUMPING FRONT KICK

The club record is 284 cm. Players compete in seven divisions split into male, female and midgets (girls & boys). The highest kicking is always a crowd pleaser. You have to see it to believe it.

FULL REPORT BELOW

Team Patterns - Championship Trophy

Results & Medals

There were 182 patterns (poomsae) players this year. Most divisions were heavily fielded. In every close finish, these smaller divisions can sometimes prove the difference, but as you will read below, that was not so much the case this year.

First & Second Place

The defending champions, Team Newmarket, had their work ahead having entered with 33 players, compared to Team Kenmore with 49 players. There was perhaps some happy rivalry here too as the last seven years the Championship had only been won by these two teams — Team Newmarket having won four to Team Kenmore's three. Team Kenmore commenced today definitely wishing to even the score, but fell short it appears by only one match. In retrospect, one final, with a heavy field of players, was closely contested by Team Kenmore and Team Newmarket. Team Newmarket narrowly secured the win by a split decision. But a win to Team Kenmore here would have sent the scoreboard back to 8 gold each, the Championship then decided by silver medals. And Team Kenmore had more silver. A valiant effort, but alas, maybe next year! Congratulations to Team Newmarket on their Championship win with 9 gold medals and to Team Kenmore on runner-up with 7 gold medals.

Third Place

Team Toowoomba sought to increase its chances this year by entering 24 players. Its a long way to come, so everyone was impressed to see Instructor John Handyside's team swarming the arena. They did not disappoint, securing four gold medals and third place. This is their first podium result for the main event. Notably they had won the Players event in 2019, but had been somewhat quiet until now. Notably, Team Toowoomba black belt Johanna Whittle is this year's Club Champion. Congratulations to Team Toowoomba for third place.

Notable Matches

Red III division was exceptional with the finals delivering very close matches. The judges were definitely tested with many split decisions having to be decided by Head of Court. Head of Court this year was Master Bradley, scouting no doubt for the next black belt promotion tests! Master Bradley had made special mention of the performances of players: Roman Castiglione (Team The Gap) and Anoushri Chand (Team Kenmore) — their next event hopefully grading to black belt.

Team Newmarket white belt Evie Hird battled in the largest division of 25 players to finally win gold, after 5 rounds. Together with Evie in the final was Team Kenmore Rachel Lundy, securing silver and Team Regents Park Emily Kim for bronze medal.

Blue belt Club Champion Team Toowoomba Midori Mihara performed very strongly, showing advanced skill with her side kicks and made it easy for the judges.

Club Champions

We congratulate the champions in each division. It is usually a long road just to get to the finals and then two more matches after that. Club Champions must be prepared for the endurance and serious training must be undertaken in preparation.  

• Black      Johannah Whittle (Toowoomba)
• Red III    Jessica Welch (The Gap)
• Red         David Ramirez (Newmarket)
• Blue        Midori Mihara (Toowoomba)
• Yellow    Emilia Meyer-Dinh (Kenmore)
• White    Magenta Mett (Kenmore)

Results (links)

• CHAMPIONSHIP LEADERBOARD - TEAM PLACINGS (pdf)
• INDIVIDUAL MATCH RESULTS & MEDAL (pdf) 
  Matches run Round 1: top to bottom. Round 2: bottom to top. Round 3: top to bottom, etc.
• CLUB CHAMPIONS - MATCH RESULTS (pdf)
• EVENT HISTORY

Team Patterns - Players Trophy

Results & Medals

The Players Trophy Sun Bae record is 55.56%, meaning that is the percentage of the team who snared a medal. The winner this year, with a team of 33 players and a result of 51.52% was Newmarket.  Only two more medals were required to set a new club record.

Whilst it appeared close on the leader board, there was really only one team within range of Team Newmarket and that was Team Mt Gravatt who needed only three more medals to take the prize. Congratulations to Team Newmarket, Master Shirly and Instructor Kaisa on their Players win!   

 Results (links)

• LEADERBOARD - TEAM PLACINGS
• EVENT HISTORY

High Kicking

Results & Medals

The club record of 284 cm was not challenged terribly this year, but a surprising result emerged in the men's division under 176 cm tall. It was Team Kenmore black belt William Vuong who wooed the crowd with each attempt to kick a bit higher finishing the day at 255 cm. He appeared to have wings of some sort, hanging in the air whilst he stretched upward. William has now set the record for that division! That's a little higher than your standard ceiling at home by the way.  

The Sun Bae highest kick record of 284 cm set by Michael Mills remains intact. Considering it to be somewhat close to the world record, it is likely to stay where it is. For students wishing to kick higher, please concentrate on your front splits ability and set a strong work-out program three months out from the event ( and don't eat lunch just before you compete).  

 Results (links)

• TEAM RESULTS
• INDIVIDUAL RESULTS & MEDALS

Power Breaking

Results & Medals

The tile breaking had less entrants this year, but they did not disappoint. The tiles used are all terracotta roofing tiles and only black belts are permitted to enter — due to the inherent danger of breaking.

Instructor Nicole Vickery (Team The Gap) demolished six tiles this year to win gold in the ladies division, only two tiles shy of the ladies club record. Andrew Shoebridge (Team The Gap) took down six tiles to win bronze in the men's, whilst Instructor Ben Vickery (Team The Gap) demolished his entire stack of 7 tiles and the silver medal. Note: an additional tile is added to the score when the entire stack is broken — a happy bonus in order to break ties where necessary. The crowd is always somewhat excited when the entire stack goes down, today was no exception.

Team The Gap dominated the tile breaking winning the most medals. But not be outdone, Master Mark Buxton (Team Regents Park) added something special this year. In a masterful display of power and concentration, he treated the arena to a continuous four station breaking display totalling 33 tiles:

• Station 1: punch 4 tile stack
• Stack 2: elbow 6 tile stack
• Stack 3: left and right duel knifehand upon 2 stacks of 7 tiles each (i.e. 14 tiles)
• Stack 4:  knifehand 9 tile stack

Stack 4 was the nominated part of the competition — the gold medal awarded to Master Mark Buxton.

Results (links)

• RESULTS & MEDALS — MALE
• RESULTS & MEDALS — FEMALE