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GB Taekwondo Academy Update

The London Olympics is less than a year away and GB's prospects for 2012 could not be healthier.

The Great Britain team is enjoying its most successful period ever with international medals being shared throughout our male and female weight divisions.

Undoubtedly the highlight of the year to date has been our most successful World Championships ever and the performance in winning four medals in Korea.

Sarah Stevenson's achievement was particularly special, coming ten years after her first success and the performances from the rest of the team shows that there is real strength in depth across the Academy.

Having since selected the weight categories for 2012 we are going to see fierce competition across the UK for those four Team GB places. That was made clear recently at our training camp in Korea and at the Goseong Invitational event in which we had three British athletes in the male -68kg and all four semi-finalists in the male -80kg competition.

It sets the British Open up nicely and with the addition of some of the best fighters from around the Globe, the competition is going to be a hot one.

New additions to the Academy

This summer has seen a few comings and goings at the GB Taekwondo Academy.

We're delighted to have Lutalo Muhammad join the senior ranks on the World Class Performance Programme. Lutalo has come from W Muhammad TKD club in London and will soon be heading out to the World University Games in China before competing in the British Open.

And the Junior ranks have been swelled by the arrival of three new faces: Jamie Abley (Chi Taekwondo), Amin Badr (Empsi TKD) and George Lee (Fusion TKD). And their performances in training have already impressed the coaching staff, highlight the quality of young players coming through clubs across the land.

National Championships Review

The recent 2011 BTCB National Championships attracted a record entry of 520 athletes over the two days of competition at the National Cycling Centre here in Manchester.

Over 65 club teams from Southampton to Glasgow took part in this flagship event on the National events calendar.

New for 2011 was the introduction of Electronic Body Protectors (PSS) and a Veterans division that saw 7th Dan Masters competing again after 15 years!

The encouraging thing was the record number of cadet and junior entries with some fantastic displays of talent for the future.

WTF Taekwondo has never been so popular and this can only continue as we head towards London 2012!

See exciting video from the Nationals here.



Development

Whilst it's hard to ignore the build up to London 2012 as we pass the 'One Year to Go' milestone, we want to ensure that we identify and develop talent for future major championships, for Rio 2016 and beyond.

We now have a full time Development Manager in place, Dean Leak, who is working with national agencies such as Sport England and UK Sport, as well as clubs up and down the land, to develop new programmes for our promising Junior and Cadet athletes.

And we've settled in now to our new Academy in East Manchester which has been customised for our elite players, but is also delivering to local community clubs and schools.

We recently saw the launch of the 'Development Pathway', aimed at providing young athletes with the technical and tactical knowledge and skills to assist their progression and development and help them reach their full potential.

There are a number of further Junior Development Camps scheduled for August, following those staged last Spring and we have recently announced the start of the National Cadet Talent Squad Programme with a number of Cadet camps scheduled for later this year.

Indeed it's an exciting time for both our Cadets and Juniors. Our Cadets gave some really promising performances at the European Championships recently in Georgia with a special mention for our bronze medallist, Emily Watson.

Now it's the turn of our Juniors who head to Cyprus in October for their European Championships and before that, they'll be taking part in an intensive training camp to gear up for the challenge.

Finally, with our own British Open on the horizon, we have announced an initiative in partnership with our host city Manchester to deliver a number of Coach Workshops to support the work of our club network.