Ghana Taekwondo to continue to make strides
The Ghana Taekwondo Federation (GTF) will this year continue to intensify its efforts to get to every corner of the country by encouraging the formation of more clubs within communities and schools.
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To this end, the federation under the leadership of its president, Federick Otu Lartey, is urging the various regional chairmen to brace themselves up for another exciting and successful year by working assiduously to improve upon the achievements of last year in which practitioners and, for that matter, the federation, won three silver medals and a bronze from both international and domestic competitions.
Earlier, last year, the team won two silver medals when members of the federation took part in the 2015 Las Vegas Open and the 2015 US Open Championships respectively and later won silver and bronze medals at the All African Games (AAG) held in Congo Brazzaville in September.
Aside these international competitions, which members of the federation were able to chalk some successes, the GTF in order to keep the athletes in good shape and on their toes domestically, also organised a number of championships which were climaxed with the flagship Korea Cup competition last December.
The programmes of the federation all began early last year with the Mission International Team Championships, which was followed by the XTDK Taekwondo Championships, which the federation organised in collaboration with the XTKD Taekwondo Foundation.
Subsequently, the GTF and the Embassy of the Republic of Korea introduced and organised the first Taekwondo Video Contest for taekwondo clubs across the country in September. And as part of the contest, taekwondo clubs each sent a 30-second video clip on their perspective about the discipline to the organisers for verification.
In the end, 20 clubs were selected as winners and three out of the 20 emerged the gold, silver and bronze medalists.
The 20 clubs were the Accra Polythecnic Taekwondo Academy, Astoria, Demonstration School For The Deaf Taekwondo, Hill View, Madina Taekwondo and Marpro Taekwondo Clubs.
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The rest are Meghis, Our Lady of Mercy Senior High School, Pippas, Power Kix, Prixmax Warriors Martial Arts, Queenscourt Taekwondo Academy, Ramgoon, Solomon Bennett Memorial Taekwondo, Sos-Hermann Gmeiner School, State School For The Deaf Taekwondo, Sunyani Taekwondo Club, Tema Technical Institute Taekwondo, Wam Taekwondo Academy and Prisons Taekwondo Clubs.
For the first time in the history of the GTF, the federation organised an annual general meeting at the Accra Sports Stadium to take stock of its activities and programnmes over the years. It was attended by all the 10 regional chairmen and other representatives from clubs across the country.
The year’s Korea Cup competition, which was held at the D J Hithramani Sports Hall at the Accra Sports Stadium, drew the curtain on taekwondo activities for the year with Augustus Agbozo and Eunice Adedapo from the Accra Polytechnic taekwondo winning the best male and female fighters respectively
Benson Addo, from the Accra Polytechnic Taekwondo Club, won the most promising male fighter with Hamdiatu Bashiru from the George Barnes Club, winning the best female fighter.
Prisons Taekwondo Club in Accra became the best taekwondo club, while Sharon Akwei from the camp of Sesi Taekwondo Club, took the award for the best para player.
The GTFurther put the icing on the cake when it secured an International Olympic Committee (IOC ) training scholarship for two persons, who are receiving monthly stipends for their preparation towards the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil.