Friday 14 July 2006

2006 Jnr World Champs - Comp Day 1

 


These two articles written by Mr Brown, sprinkled with photos from me give a fabulous feel for our team's performance:

Morning - "3 Bronze's in Patterns!"

Afternoon - "Giant killer female team wins silver, team pattern!"

Saturday 29/8/2020: In compiling this historic content I discovered that I had a whole lot of images missing from the day. This was the first international event that I'd covered and I was also learning quickly what was important to photograph but had a long way to go. I saw photos of mine on the articles in the links above that weren't in my library. I looked on one of my archive Hard Drives and they weren't there either. So, out came the CDs from 2006. However, at this stage we don't have a computer capable of reading a CDROM. I'll have to try a machine at work next week. [Sunday: I borrowed a portable CD ROM drive from a friend and recovered the missing images. They included much of the afternoon with male and female team patterns performances, Jess and David's pre-arranged sparring plus male special technique with Chris, Sam and Shane.

My top pics of the day....

An overview of the day (including all performances)...

500 images from the day for those wanting to see their performance in more detail...


Thursday 13 July 2006

Weigh In Day

 

The day many of those dieting to get into their target weight have been holding out for... and a chance to eye up the competition for the first time.

Mr Brown's report - part 1 and part 2

Images...

Tuesday 11 July 2006

Exploring and Splashing About

 

Today the team splash about in the pool before breaking into groups. I took the trip out with others in a couple of vans to take up up a historic mountain with a view of the city.

Mr Gwyn Brown tells more here...

And the next day I must have taken a break from photography with Mr Brown reporting this...

The best photos here...

Lots of photos here...

Saturday 8 July 2006

Houston Training in the Car Park

 

It was hot but the team needed to train so the covered hotel car park was chosen. I loved the raw look of it, with bright side lighting, and an almost ghetto look. I captured some long time personal favourite images here.

Images (best)...

Images (the rest)...

Report by Mr Gwyn Brown about the day with photos...

Friday 7 July 2006

Saturday 24 June 2006

Taupo Junior Worlds Camp 24/6/2006

[Published 22/8/2020]

Here we are at the second Junior World Champs NZ Team training camp at Taupo. It's now getting close to departure. The team had fun "running the gauntlet" (not sure how else to explain it) which brought out a lot of laughs. Doug

The best images...

By Mike Yates - Team Manager

The Juniors had the last camp before leaving for the World Championships in Honduras. The Saturday started with an early start, 5.30 am wake up for fitness at 6 am with Mr Ballard and myself. After breakfast further fitness with Mr Jackson and Mr Trotter. We are very impressed with their fitness, it is apparent that they have been working hard between camps.

On Saturday afternoon the team went to the local pool for a well earned swim. That evening, after tea the Juniors were divided into 5 teams and completed the eating challenge, as seen on Fear Factor. Some handled the challenge very well where others had to use the spit bucket.

On Sunday it was team building games organized by Mr Burr and myself. Those watching found it very amusing as the Juniors were asked to complete various challenges that they had not experienced before.

Team coaches and management would like to take this opportunity to thank the parents and supporters that have helped out at the Junior camps held at Taupo. Their assistance has been invaluable and made the camps very successful. Also like to thank those that have assisted at the trainings sessions held by the coaches in Auckland and Palmerston North.

We have been very fortunate to have had Mr Luke Thompson assist the team, sharing his experience, expertise and knowledge, particularly with power breaking. He gave up weekends to attend camps and we are very grateful for this.


The team is very lucky to have such fantastic assistant coaches, Mr Jackson and Mr Trotter, and managers, Mr Burr and Mrs. Katene. We can't speak highly enough about them as their dedication to the team has gone far beyond what we had ever envisioned. For example the assistant coaches have since October last year held two trainings a week for the Juniors within their patch, this has certainly paid off as the improvement in the juniors is amazing.

The weekend went without a hitch though it was touch and go whether those south of Taupo were going to make it due to the road closures . The snow was either side of the road, very picturesque but disconcerting on the other hand. On the we back we stopped on the Desert Road and had a snow fight, Mr Ballard was hit many times by well aimed snow balls.

Saturday 27 May 2006

Where it started for me - 1st Junior World Champs Taupo Camp

 

[I've dated this article 27th May 2006 - the date of the training camp but wrote this article 22 August 2020. I'll be publishing content covering the 2006 Junior World Champs in this way to keep the posts in chronological order.]

For me, I think this is where my interest in photographing Taekwon-do started. My son Jeremy Hanna was keen to trial for the 2006 Junior World Champs in Honduras. I'd taken a few photos at an Auckland training session. Then we headed down to Taupo for a weekend training camp. There isn't a lot for a parent to do at these camps and having had a life long passion for photography that's what I did. I had Canon's first consumer Digital SLR Camera, the Canon EOS 300D with a couple of very slow lenses. The images were back then a large 5.8 megapixels in size!

It was a start of several new and exciting chapters in my life...

Jeremy was extremely keen on competing in Taekwon-do. It had been a passion for a few years and as a first dan black belt and at 15 he was old enough to compete.

I started to get to know instructors, parents and students, many of which would become good friends over the next few years.

People appreciated the photos I took... which spurred me on to get in closer, and to pursue capturing great images of the sport with passion.

When we went to Honduras, I just went along as a parent and continued to take photos. Mr Gwyn Brown was the official ITFNZ reporter and I transferred images back to NZ to accompany his articles. The feedback and appreciation from the Taekwon-do community following us back home again spurred me on.

Together with Jeremy, and Mark as the official ITFNZ reporter/photographer for Quebec in 2007, we traveled the world competing, and photographing and reporting on the New Zealand team for the next few years starting with Honduras for the 2006 Junior Worlds (via time in LA and Houston); Quebec, Canada for the 2007 Worlds; World Cup in Reva del Garda, Italy in 2008 (with time in London, Rome and afterwards in Poland); Mar del Plata, Argentina for the 2009 Worlds where Jeremy won gold for junior 3rd dan patterns (with time in Buenos Aires); Wellington for the 2011 Worlds where Jeremy won gold in senior 3rd dan patterns - the highlight of his competing career and when he retired from Taekwon-do after 10 years of intensive training. I went on to cover the 2013 World Champs Spain in 2013 but found my interest less intense without a family member competing.

So, this is where it started. Here are the best images I captured at this camp...