OVERTON and Basingstoke Taekwondo Club enjoyed great success at the Taekwondo Chungdowkan GB Championships.

Sending their largest team for more than 10 years – 11 for poomsae and 13 for sparring, they returned with 15 medals, four gold, four silver and seven bronze.

The day started with the poomsae competitors Sian Reilly, Coleen Reilly, Michael Digby, Cullen Walker, Julie Roth, Luke Rowland, Paul Crawte, Neo Botha, Amy Stock, Bradley Welsman and Simon Jones.

The first medal was a bronze and went to Botha in the Female 11-13 Advanced.

This was a good result, coming in her first ever poomsae tournament.

This was followed by a gold for Stock, also competing in Poomsae for the first time, in the Female 14-17 Advanced.

Welsman than added a silver in the Male 14-17 Combined Intermediate and Advanced.

The final medal of the poomsae came from Roth with a superb gold in the Female 18-34 Combined Intermediate and Advanced to add to her British Taekwondo National title last month.

The competition then moved to the sparring with the club’s competitors being Alex Stock, Amy Stock, Anthony Lewis, Cullen Walker, Dean Digby, Jamie Froude, Julie Roth, Kamil Nowak, Liam Griffiths, Luke Rowland, Neo Botha, Scott Coventry and Simon Jones.

First medal of the sparring was a bronze from Walker in a high-scoring match in his first ever tournament.

This was followed by further bronze medals for Lewis, Griffiths, Jones, Rowland and Amy Stock and silvers for Alex Stock, Roth and Botha.

The sparring performance was capped off by two excellent gold medals.

Nowak, fighting a final against a much taller opponent, showed great timing to control the match, countering headshot after headshot with accurate body attacks, to pull out a well deserved win.

The day finished with another gold thanks to Digby, who fought a brilliant match in the final, throwing accurately timed fast headshots to decisively take victory.

Previously four members of the Overton and Basingstoke Tae Kwon Do club returned with medals from the London Open in Brentford.

This was a significant step up for all the players as they were competing in electronic body protectors for the first time and all in the top category against very experienced players.

The standard at the tournament was very high, with a lot of established competitors. This provided an excellent learning experience for the players from both their matches and from watching other matches on the day, which they will be taking with them into future competitions.

Results from the day were Amy Stock (silver), Alex Stock (silver), Botha (silver) and Welsman (bronze).