PINOY junior jins capped their two-week intensive overseas training by winning seven golds, four silvers and one bronze in the recent Gwanju Open International Taekwondo Championships at the Bitgoel Gym in Gwanju, South Korea.
Taking home golds in the Under-14 age group division were Earl Shahid dela Cruz and Gyanna Ingrid Domingo in the boys and girls division, winning mints in the Under-17 Open were Kenneth Gutierrez, Myiesha Delutta, Jazmine Ira Raganit, Jamie Zuriel Marasigan and Earl Shahid Dela Cruz while Earl Jan Samaniego bagged a gold in the seniors’ division.
The silver medalists were Elijah Kane Gabales in the Under 17 Open and Emman Kyle Reyes, Kristiana Catalina Tiu and Victor Rodriguez in the senior division while Isabella Del Rosario, daughter of former national standout Monsour Del Rosario, took the bronze in the same category.
“I am glad that all of the junior jins we sent to the competition won a medal; a perfect record in the kyorugi (sparring) and poomsae disciplines,” noted Del Rosario, the Asean Taekwondo Federation president, who headed the delegation.
“This competition featured outstanding junior jins from around the globe from such as countries as Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Indonesia, China, China and South Korea,” Del Rosario noted.
He cited coaches Elisabella Cesista-Domingo (poomsae) and Isagani Domingo (kyurogi) of the Kasilawan Taekwondo Club for the success of the junior jins who first took part in the two-week World Taekwondo Partnership Taekwondo Program that preceded the competition.
The 1988 Seoul Olympic Games veteran was proud of her daughter winning her first medal in an international competition “but I was prouder that Bella (Del Rosario’s nickname) and her teammates survived the two weeks of daily hardcore training, eight hours a day, in the WT program in South Korea.”
