Isle of Wight Tae Kwon-Do Club

Fight Night

On Saturday 5^th July, 4 students from the Isle of Wight Tae Kwon-Do club travelled to Chippenham to represent the A.P.T.I. in the Battle of Britain Tournament.

Alex Jewett and Kerry Way were part of the Ladies Team, Ben Jones was in the Boy’s division and Hannah Thomson was in the girl’s team. Jack Eldridge was also in as a reserve for the men’s team.

They were competing in a team tournament against other teams from PUMA and Evolution. All fights took place on one ring and were watched by 600-700 people.

First up was Ben Jones who took part in the opening fight of the tournement and in his first fight against a member of the Evolution team he fought excellently and was a convincing winner. The APTI team won 4-1 after all the team had competed. A suspect change of fighters in the round against PUMA meant that Ben had to fight a very experienced tournament fighter and even though Ben fought very well the PUMA’s were declared the winners leaving our team to take the silver.

Hannah Thompson was up next in the girls team. She fought exceptionally well in her first fight against a black belt from the Evolution team and narrowly lost. Despite this the girl’s team were victorious over Evolution. Next they had to fight the girls from the PUMA team. Hannah came up against an experienced black belt in this fight. Again she fought well but lost out to the experience of her opponent. The APTI girl’s team won silver in this category.

In the ladies division Kerry was the first fighter to compete and she showed great determination as she carried on fighting after receiving a painful kick to the ribs early in the fight. Her opponent was announced as the winner in that round. Alex Jewett was also in the ladies team and with a very tactical and impressive performance kept her opponent at the edge of the ring, did not give her a chance and won easily. The next round against the team from PUMA was a different matter for everyone in the ladies team. The ladies from PUMA were, as most people agreed, very aggressive in all of their fights and rather than relying on skill and sportsmanship went for all out power which proved to much for our ladies. Again the APTI team came away with the silver trophy.

It was a great evening and members of the team did the APTI, the island club and themselves proud with great performances whilst still adhering to the tenets of Tae Kwon-Do.

We were on PUMA’s ‘turf’ and outnumbered in the crowd but the team and supporters made themselves heard above the noise.

All of the APTI instructors and Master Ferguson would like to pass on their sincere thanks and respect for all of the team for taking part in the tournament and fighting so well.