Andre’s Taekwondo Academy comes back home victorious
Andre's Taekwondo Academy has 150 adult participants and 100 participants at nursery schools.
Andre’s Taekwondo Academy recently returned home victorious with two world champions from the American Taekwondo Association (ATA) World Championship held in Phoenix, Arizona.
The academy’s assistant coordinator Milana van Tonder said, “The small team of 17 led by national coach André van Tonder came home with two world champions, Faiyaz Khan and Joshua Passmoor.”
She added the academy won 45 medals including nine gold, 22 silver and 14 bronze. The Van Tonder Norwood team brought home two gold, nine silver and five bronze medals.
Founder of the Norwood academy Andre van Tonder explained how a world champion was determined.
“The best of the best throughout the year all over the world compete and yearly points are collected based on the position attained at various competitions. If the participants get a first in this division, then you are the world champion.”
Milana added, “To compete at the ATA World Championship you need to either have presidential colours or full national colours. To get your colours you have to compete in at least two or three ATA competitions, as well as the South African Korea Martial Arts competitions which is a broader competition of other forms of taekwondo.”
Gold medalist Ben Lubbe said, “I was one of the people that competed in the ATA World Championship from the Norwood team and was injured in the semi-finals but had to soldier on and ended up winning the tournament in sparring. I have bruised ribs and liver damage and I will not be practising for one week to give myself time to heal.”
Milana concluded, “Our SA nationals are in October. The top five of each age group compete in the different categories and the winners become our national champions.”
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