Sunday 30 August 2020

2006 Junior World Champs - The Competition

 


This is part of a series of new articles covering the 2006 Junior World Champs which were held prior to the development of TKDAction.com and my subsequent time photographing and reporting on ITFNZ events. My goal is to capture these records for the long term enjoyment of those that came, and their friends and family who supported the competition from home in NZ. 

Our NZ Team of 25 over three days of competition achieved 3 Golds, 5 Silver and 10 Bronze medals, 4th country overall with plenty of wonderful moments and memories.

Day 1 competition...

Day 2 competition...

Day 3 competition...

My pick of the picks:





















Friday 28 August 2020

2006 Junior World Champs - The Buildup

 


This is part of a series of new articles covering the 2006 Junior World Champs which were held prior to the development of TKDAction.com and my subsequent time photographing and reporting on ITFNZ events. My goal is to capture these records for the long term enjoyment of those that came, and their friends and family who supported the competition from home in NZ. 

The 2006 Junior World Champs in Honduras started on Friday 14th July. Back then the Junior and Senior World Champs events were held separately on alternate years. This was to be the last one before they were permanently combined in 2007 into a single event. For the Juniors selected in 2006 it meant an advantage as they could return to New Zealand and keep the intense training momentum for the following year's World Championships in Canada.

We flew to LA and then on to Houston where we had several days to get over jet-lag and intensify our preparation.

2006 in Honduras was a relatively stable period prior to the constitutional crisis in 2009 that threw the country into turmoil.

However, my observation when we visited was that Honduras suffered from substantial unemployment (I believe about 40%) and without social welfare there was evidence of a society familiar with crime.


Arriving at the airport after an interesting day flying in was relatively modern, but as we piled onto an old bus and drive through the suburbs we observed all the houses being behind high walls topped with looped laser wire and steel gates. We passed a man walking down the centre of a street with a metre long machete menacingly resting on his shoulder. We saw armed guards placed outside businesses and shops. The reality of being in a different society to what we were accustomed sank in quickly.



As we entered our hotel, the hotel had armed guards and were well prepared to keep us safe and to guard us against our own potential naivety. 

We were lucky to have had a very enjoyable, safe and happy time and experienced no significant issues during our stay. We had relative freedom to "tour" out and about in well organised and well supervised excursions in the city and surrounding hills.

These articles house the the story of our buildup through to weigh in for the competition, using reports written by our official reporter, Mr Gwyn Brown, and the photographs that I immersed myself in taking and some memories I can recall.

27 May 2006 - Where it started for me - 1st Junior World Champs Taupo Camp...

The second Taupo Camp 24 June 2006...

6 July 2006 - Hello Houston...

Visiting Nasa...

Training under ground in the car park...

Houston to Tegucigalpa, Honduras...

Exploring Tegucigalpa...

More exploring and splashing about...

Weigh In Day...


Saturday 22 August 2020

A trip back in time to February 2007

 

After the July 2006 ITF Junior World Champs in Honduras the ITF combined the Junior and Senior World Championship events into one event. This meant a golden run for the 2006 junior team to prepare for their second opportunity to represent New Zealand in less than 12 months alongside the senior team in Quebec Canada in June 2007. 

Here are the first 6 articles to appear on TKDAction back in February 2007, now freshly restored. 

Thursday 20 August 2020

Restoring TKDAction's article photo gallery links from 2007 - 2013

Since Google discontinued PicasaWeb support in 2016 most of my articles on TKDAction had their links to photo galleries broken. After thinking about dedicating time to doing a restoration of this work for about a year, along with support and encouragement from Master McPhail and technical advice from Mark Hanna I've got the project started.

I'm sure many of you will have amazing memories of the many training camps and tournaments and I hope you can find time to look through some of these now quite old articles and image galleries.

February 2007 (7 articles)
March 2007 (4 articles)
April (4 articles)
July 2007 (2 articles)
August 2007 (2 articles)
September 2007 (5 articles)
November 2007 (1 article)
December 2007 (3 articles)

Next I'll be working on the full 2007 build up and coverage of the 2007 World Champs in Quebec