University of Montana
BigSkyTaekwondo

Report on US Team to the 3rd World Junior Championships

November 20, 2000.

President Sang Chul Lee
United States Taekwondo Union
One Olympic Plaza
Colorado Springs, CO 80909

Dear President Lee,

The following is my official report to you on the participation of the US Junior Team to the 3rd World Junior Championships.

The United States was well represented at the 3rd World Junior Championships held in Killarney, Ireland. November 14-18. The Head of the US Team was myself, Kim Sol. On the referee side, the United States contributed Barbara Wakefield, Chang Kil Kim, Anne Chase, and Chu Young Lee. US Team coaches were the highly experienced Dae Sung Lee, Sammy Pejo, and Kevin Padilla. Trish Bare-Grounds provided her usual supportive medical and first aid support.

Getting There

Except for a few who flew from Atlanta, most of the US Team met Sunday, November 11 at Kennedy Airport in New York for the long overnight flight to Dublin, Ireland. Dublin was just stopover, however, and the flight continued on after a delay to Shannon Airport, which is apparently the only large international airport serving southwest Ireland. The airport is located at a little burg called Shannon, but is actually the airport for Limerick, which is easier to find on the map, but they insist on calling it Shannon Airport, so until you find the right map, you don't really know where you are when you get there. Anyway, we got there about 9:30 Monday morning.

We had a team meeting in the airport lounge, and introductions and the usual round of mildly inspirational speeches, except everyone was pretty tired from the long plane flight and the delay in Dublin, so any actual resulting inspiration had to wait until after coffee.

We all piled on a big bus for the two hour trip to the tournament site. The tournament was held at a large hotel-convention center in Killarney, Ireland. Killarney is kind of a tourist center for southwest Ireland, but its really a long way from the airport. So, we get on the bus, and off we went. Now, Ireland is one of those countries that drives on the left hand side of the road. We knew this immediately when the bus pulled onto the left, wrong, side of the road and took off down this very narrow winding road, oblivious to our natural reaction of being on the wrong side. When you sit in a horror movie, you know its a movie, and you know that the teenager is going to do something incredibly stupid and then get hacked up, probably, and you know all this from experience, but, when it happens, you scream anyway. Well, that's kind of what it was like driving down this Irish road on the wrong side.

We did get a nice view on the countryside, however, on this trip. Mainly rural, with a small town ever 10 miles or so, rock walls surrounding an endless tapestry of small pastures covering the gently rolling countryside. It's winter in Ireland, so all the trees and bushes were bare, but the grass and some shrubs remain quite green. This time of year, it is constantly gray, foggy, and drizzling rain, and that was pretty much the fare for our entire stay. This climate explains our next observation.

At each small town, the shops were attached to each other on one or both sides of the road, and they were quite small. No supermarkets here. So, you would see a butcher shop, then a pub, then a little hardware store, then a pub, then a tiny grocery store, then a pub, a feed and agriculture store, then three more pubs. This pattern was repeated in every town we saw. Between towns, we saw few sheep or cattle on the many pastures, and no crop land whatsoever; all pasture.

In between towns, we would see an abandoned castle or cathedral poking out of the brush here and there, scattered about at random. This was quite impressive but there are apparently so many of them, that little attention is paid to them, and except for a few, little or no efforts at preservation.

On the right, one of the well preserved and restored castle/houses, Muckross House, is located at the National Park in Killarney, and has an interesting history of centuries of conflict, apparently over who was supposed to pay the heating bill.

Finally, we arrived at Killarney, which was the largest town we saw on the whole trip except for Limerick. Killarney is indeed a tourist town. The bus driver had been offering his observations throughout the trip, and after we were finally getting used to his dialect to the point that we were able to understand him, as we pulled into Killarney, he informed us that the resident population of the town is 10,000, but that during the summer months, the population is anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000. But there were lots of little shops, pubs of course, a factory outlet store (the only one in Ireland), a Burger King, multiple hotels and motels of varying degrees of modernity, and, we noted, nearly every residence we saw was a "Bed and Breakfast".

Killarney is a scenic and recreational center of the southwest of Ireland, with Ireland's largest national park and several large lakes nearby, as well as a beautiful coastline. Historic and prehistoric relics and ruins are all over the place, going back 9,000 years. Killarney is about dead center in County Kerry. We would call it Kerry County. Unfortunately, with a heavy schedule of competition over a full week, we didn't get to see any of County Kerry and not much of Killarney, but the postcards were nice. It rained the whole time anyway, so maybe the postcards were better.

The Competition

The main  venue for the 3rd World Junior Championships was the GlenEagle Hotel, south of Killarney. It is a family-owned hotel that has grown over the years to include a golf course, a variety of ballroom and entertainment functions, and, most recently, "the National Events Centre." This is mainly a large auditorium and stage; it is emphatically not a gymnasium type facility of the sort that usually accommodates a Taekwondo tournament. So, we saw two rings set up where portable bleachers usually were located, and another competition ring up on stage. A little different. As a result, spectator viewing was not very optimal.

The owner of the GlenEagle, Maurice O'Donoghue, is a little old guy who is always on the scene in his always somewhat rumpled suit, always relighting his pipe. He was friendly and ever-helpful. This is a big place, and so his remarkable presence at virtually all times was quite a feat.

The 3rd World Junior Championship was attended by 59 or 49 countries depending on who you talked to or which press release you read. Just under 600 competitors in any case. With coaches, support staff, and parents, over 1,000 attendees in all. We had a very friendly and helpful contingent of parents attending from the United States, and even some instructors, but this was not typical of most countries that attend. Most countries, I was surprised to learn, don't permit parents to accompany the teams, for a variety of reasons, I guess. But, ours provided a nice backup of smiling faces and pleasant conversation at different times.

After a couple of acclimating work-outs Monday afternoon, the team had dinner, and Tuesday worked out a couple of more times and did the only real sight-seeing they had time for on the trip. At 7:00 a.m., Wednesday morning, the first divisions showed up for weigh-ins. All of the US team members made weight throughout the tournament, which was quite a feat considering some of these kids had grown as much as three inches since this team was selected at US Junior Nationals back in July in San Antonio, Texas.

The event was hosted by the Irish Taekwondo Union. Its President, Steve Howe, is a stocky, very Irish sounding gentlemen who somehow managed to do an outstanding job organizing the event. The draw computer failed, which was supposed to do the draws for the entire tournament in 30 minutes, and so draw procedures thereupon occupied a couple of hours Monday evening, and most of the afternoon the next day. That's where I was folks; no sight-seeing for me. Anyway, the Irish Taekwondo Union is quite small, only about 400 active members, and is mainly active in Dublin, not Killarney. So, this championship was organized by the strenuous efforts of a very few people. Their hospitality, in spite of the tournament pressures of organizing a world championship, was nothing short of outstanding.

The first day of any tournament is always exciting, and Wednesday was no exception. All around are all these different faces and languages being spoken, and you see national team uniforms with unfamiliar names like "Norge" and "Sverige". The real puzzler was "Hvertckla" or something like that. Well, these were Norway, Sweden and Croatia. I enquired as to why these names are so different than they ought to be, and received diverse, lengthy, and confusing explanations. I still have no idea why. On the other hand, there were strong teams from places like Uzbekistan and Kazahkstan; places that didn't even exist as independent nations a decade ago.

Two of the four American International Referees, Chu Young Lee and Barbara Wakefield. Anne Chase and Chang Kil Kim also worked hard for this tournament. These were long days for the IRs. Even competitors and coaches have considerable time to themselves during a tournament, but the IRs don't have much slack time; they are on the go, under pressure, from 8 a.m. until 9:30 p.m., for four straight days. In spite of that, they still managed these great smiles for my camera.

The USTU's press release describing the first day pretty much summed it up.

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - Daniel Elkowitz (17) of Richmond, Texas got the United States Junior National Taekwondo Team off to a good start at the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships in Killarney, Ireland with his bronze medal performance in the Finweight Division. Elkowitz garnered victories over Diego Redina of Italy, Vahid Naseri of Iran, and Badr Baraka Al Rashidi of Kuwait, before losing to Hong Ki Lee of Korea in the semi-finals. Jessica Miron (15) of Miami, Florida won the only other medal for the United States in the first day of competition at the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships. Miron captured the bronze medal in the Welterweight Division. She began the day by defeating Maria Ga'l of Hungary and then went on to beat Elizabeth Dronin of Canada and Anabel Made of the Dominican Republic before losing to Alek Sandra Uscinski of Poland in the semi-finals. It was a disappointing day for the rest of the U.S. contingent competing today at the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships. In the Women's Lightweight Division, Danielle Pelham (15) of Kirkland, Washington defeated Sinead Joice of Ireland before suffering a disappointing loss to Charlene Mongelard of Great Britain in the quarterfinals. In the Men's Light Heavyweight Division, Johnny Kidd (16) of Indianapolis, Indiana defeated Ronan O'Brien of Ireland, but then lost to eventual Bronze medalist Steven Harbisher of Great Britain in the quarterfinals.

The second day was the US Team's big win, Diana Lopez winning a gold, pretty easily, in her division. She is just a sweetheart, and has very natural leadership skills. Again, from the USTU:

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - Diana Lopez (16) of Sugarland, Texas carried on the Lopez family tradition of excelling in International Taekwondo competitions as she defended her World Junior Taekwondo Championship title as she won the gold medal on day two of the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships in Killarney, Ireland. This has also been an exceptional year for the Lopez family as Diana's older brother Steven won the gold medal in the Olympic Featherweight Division at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia on September 28, 2000. Diana Lopez began her day with victories over Hsin Lin of Chinese Taipei and L. Nurkina of Kazakhstan. She then went on to defeat Korea in the quarterfinals, Yasemin Karatas of Germany in the semifinals, and secured the gold medal with her win over Sidel Guler of Turkey in the finals of the Light Heavyweight Division. This is Lopez's second straight World Junior title, as she was the gold medalist in the Lightweight Division of the 1998 World Junior Taekwondo Championships in Istanbul, Turkey. This win caps off a great year for her where she found herself in contention at both the U.S. Olympic Taekwondo Team Trials and the U.S. Open Taekwondo Championships, taking home the bronze medal in both. Jason McEuin (17) of Bremerton, Washington also brought home a medal as he won the bronze in the Heavyweight Division for the United States on the second day of competition at the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships. 
McEuin captured the bronze medal in tough matches against Canada, Australia, and Korea. He began the day by defeating Canada and then went on to beat Australia before losing to Doo Sang Jang of Korea in the semi-finals. McEuin, who was also the gold medalist this year at the 2000 U.S. National Taekwondo Championships is following in the footsteps of his brother and coach Casey McEuin, who was a U.S. Junior National World Team member from 1995-1997. The rest of the U.S. team competing today at the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships didn't fare as well. In the Men's Bantamweight Division, Alexander Soriano (15) of San Jose, California defeated Feihan Al Khaidi of  Kuwait, but then went on to lose to eventual bronze Medalist Eugoniy Lee of  Uzbekistan. In the Female Bantamweight Division, Amanda Thome (16) of  Neosho, Wisconsin won her first match against Renae Smith of Australia before falling just short in her match against the eventual gold medalist Dian Fitria of Indonesia in the quarterfinals. Cody Aguirre (17) of San Francisco, California lost his first match in the round of 32 to Vardan Vardanyan of Armenia in the Light Middleweight Division. In the Women's Heavyweight Division, Stephane Closi (16) of Lake Katrine, New York drew a bye in her first round match, but then suffered a disappointing loss to Soo Jin Kim, the bronze medalist from Korea in the round of 16.

By the third day, these 7 a.m. weigh-ins, and 8 p.m. finals were getting to everyone as shown here. Competitors on the left. The coaching staff on the right. Dae Sung Lee, Sammy Pejo and Kevin Padilla worked real well with the kids. Long, long days for these volunteer coaches, taking a full week out of their regular lives and jobs, just to help these kids and their dreams.

The third day was a tough one. The Korean team had some bad luck on day two. Korean national team coaches had put on such poor displays of behavior that the entire tournament crowd was booing them at different times of the day. Even the Iranian team began cheering US competitors against Korean competitors, and this was mainly because of poor feelings about these coach behaviors during the tournament. But, the Korean team had not done well, and so there apparently was a round of "inspirational" speeches that night. The Korean team arrived Friday morning pretty intense looking. For the US team, we kind of sank when we saw that the bracketing put our team against Koreans in most cases fairly early on in the day. Jeffrey Jenkins looked like he had the best chance, and he made good use of it. One thing that had impressed me that morning, as the six team members sat waiting in the early morning hours for weigh ins was this: every morning the US team members were promptly ready to weigh by 7:00 a.m.. These kids were always ready. And, their teammates, who didn't need to weigh in that day and could have slept a half hour longer, were almost always there with them. As a team, these young people were very supportive of each other all throughout this tournament and I thought it was remarkable.

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - Jeffrey Jenkins of Baltimore, Maryland won the bronze medal in the Men's Flyweight Division on day three of the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships in Killarney, Ireland. Jenkins began by defeating Chinh Khac-Le of Norway, then advanced with wins over Pavao Han of Uzbekistan and Max Luzon of the Dominican Republic, but came up short against the silver medalist, A. Khagay of Kazakhstan, in the semifinal match to win the bronze. Jenkins (15) is also the youngest male on the U.S. squad. 

The rest of the U.S. team competing today at the 2000 World Junior Taekwondo Championships seemed to have a tough time against the Korean team, who brought home five gold medals out of a possible six on day three. Alvin Marquez (17) of Riverside, California, competing in the Men's Featherweight Division, started by defeating Wei Wan of Chinese Taipei and then went on to beat Stefaan Flipkens of Belgium, but lost in the quarterfinals to Edwardo Burgos of Mexico, the bronze medalist. In the Men's Lightweight Division, Chris Martinez (17) of Aurora, Colorado won his first match against Indonesia and then went on to defeat An Other of Iran, before falling to the eventual gold medalist Sun Chol Park of Korea in the quarterfinals. Megan German (16) of Corona, California lost her match in the round of 16 to gold medalist Soo Yang Kim of Korea in the Female Flyweight Division. In the Women's Featherweight Division, Natalie Martinez (15) of Chino, California drew a bye in her first round match, but then lost to Gi Jung Yoo, the gold medalist from Korea in the round of 16. Kim Lee (16) of Erie, Pennsylvania won her first match in the Female Finweight Division against Mexico, but saw the same fate as most of the other U.S. team today as she lost to the gold medalist from Korea. 

On the last day, the US competitors didn't do too well. Brian Hood lost his first fight on a tie score to Germany. I might have called it differently; I thought Brian did a good job. Likewise, Jessica Burwell, Megan Constable, and Joseph Gjonai fought well, but just didn't seem to get the breaks on the point calls.

Finals were fought at 7 p.m. that evening. A final farewell party had been scheduled in one of the hotel ballrooms at 10:00 p.m.. Our morning flight out of Shannon was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. or so, and so we had to be on a bus at 3:30 a.m.. We finally elected that, rather than try and go to bed late and then get up, we would just stay up until we had to get ready to leave around 2:30 or 3:00 or so. So, I went to watch the kids at their party. The hosts had selected a DJ that was playing mostly American songs from the 60's and 70's, and so naturally I thought this guy was pretty good. Our Americans can dance pretty well, but Jeffrey's Dad, Mr. Jenkins, cuts the best rug by far. I remained throughout the dance, and was quite taken with the spectacle of all of these young people, coaches, and even parents, of so many different backgrounds and languages, having a great time together. Even though it was 1:00 a.m. when the dance finally ended, it came too soon. 

Since we had this two hour gap until we needed to get ready for the bus, the kids went back to their rooms, and Trish Bare-Grounds and I hung out and just conversed for a couple of hours. Trish had done her usual remarkable job, medical as well as psychological, for the competitors. She has a wonderful, no-nonsense style about her that the kids respect, but a sense of humor in it all that makes her a natural magnet. I turned in pretty early each evening, and I often found a bunch of kids collected in her room watching TV each night when I went to locate some medication for my cold so I could sleep. They respect her immensely, but they really enjoy being around her. She put in long days, and took care of every ouch and sprain.

We circulated around and the kids were pretty much all ready to go at 3, and so we gathered in the lobby of the GlenEagle Hotel. The bus was already there, but it took about a half hour to get all the luggage on board and arranged.

The bus trip was, naturally, after four long days and no sleep that night, pretty dull. Everyone slept the entire trip. Suddenly, we were at Shannon (Limerick) airport about sunrise, and wearily hauled our luggage into the airport. From there, it was a short flight to Dublin, through US immigration, then the long haul back across the Atlantic. At JFK, we said our goodbyes and the team presented the coaches, Trish, and myself with these very nice collections of Irish cut-glass goblets. These were pretty fancy and a pretty thoughtful gesture from these young people. We finished off with a couple of inspirational speeches, interrupted by a grumpy New Yorker who complained that we were blocking the entire international flight disembarkation process and that if we didn't move pronto, no one would be allowed into the United States of America ever again.

My flight was scheduled to leave at 6 that night, and it was a three hour layover for me. I went to the waiting area and read a book, falling asleep about ten feet from the flight gate. When I woke up, the flight was gone, so I had the honor of a 12 hour overnight stay at the airport to catch the next flight at 6:00 a.m..

I finished the book I was reading.

Well, all in all, it had been quite an experience. As you know, I have been in charge of one of the largest junior programs in our neck of the woods for the past 20 years, and with organizing and teaching TKD involving over 100 juniors at any given time, in addition to my collegiate TKD duties, I've had to deal with over 4,000 kids over the years on a daily basis. I've been pleased that it is one of the oldest and largest junior programs associated with a collegiate program in the country. I think we pioneered the concept when we started our junior program back in 1976, and it has worked very well for us. Karate and Taekwondo were not really seen so much as kid's activities back then, so we were building from scratch, and especially on a college campus. However, having coached successful junior level competitors at the national level in both Judo and Taekwondo over the past 30 years, you will recall why I had volunteered to serve on the USTU Junior Olympic Committee years ago, because only a strong and dedicated commitment to junior training will reliably produce outstanding senior level competitors.

However, from that lengthy, multi-sport experience, I can truthfully say that coaching and training kids has had its moments, and that experience is reinforced by refereeing at Junior Nationals for over 15 years now. Being surrounded by hundreds or thousands of kids of all ages, for days on end, over a period of many years, I've been able to see the highs and the lows of young people in Taekwondo, believe me.

So, I can say, with some considerable experience and authority, this was the best-behaved group of young people I had ever had the privilege of being with. I was impressed with how polite they all were, how hard working, and mutually supportive. These were neat kids.

I was also impressed with their technical skill. These kids are as good as any in the world, but what I could see in the competition ring was just simply the lack of "world" experience. Of course, that is what these tournaments are all about, getting "world experience," but the American kids are clearly behind the experience curve. I had several discussions about training with many of the international coaches during the 3rd World Junior Championships, and these conversations confirmed my overall thoughts on the matter. I spoke, for instance, with one of the Dutch coaches, and he explained that Holland, like most European countries, manages to participate regularly in international events on a monthly basis. With short travel distances and cheap rail transportation, a Dutch, or French, or Spanish TKD competitor can participate at the international level almost at will; at the same cost and time commitment that people in the United States undertake for a local tournament. And these are tournaments that see the regular attendance by Korean teams, Chinese Taipei, and other powerhouses.

And too, those nations strong in Taekwondo, but geographically isolated, have their own unique strengths. In Korea, for instance, Americans forget that in Seoul alone, as you know, there are more competitive Taekwondo people within a 45 minute drive of any particular venue than in all of the United States put together. Those people are participating in tournaments on practically a weekly basis, and the winners are the ones then traveling to Europe and other locations for additional tournament experience. But by the time they get there, they have already had more practical high-level tournament experience than anybody else.

I saw that at the 3rd World Junior Championship. It is not for lack of training or coaching skills that Americans do poorly. These kids are good, and their coaches and instructors are doing their jobs.

But, these are kids who go the US Open, maybe go to the Mexico Open, get on the US national team, and face opponents who have, literally, ten to twenty times or more the amount of international tournament experience. That's not a coaching problem. Its amazing our kids do as well as they do, and that is a testament to the quality of coaching and instruction in the United States, and the dedication and hard work of these kids.

We have, in the United States, a national federation that hosts a pretty good international Open tournament. It is not one of the best in the world; it is expensive for Americans to attend, and it is the most expensive for any other country to attend; its all the airfare. That's once a year.

In Europe, within a similar geographic area, you have 28 national federations, all of whom, if they host only one a year, manage to make available to the same size competitor community, over two international competitions per month! Countries like Spain manage to host at least two top-flight international competitions per year. With the railpass, a competitor can attend his or her choice of tournaments, nearly as frequently as the body can stand, within a weekend travel distance, more tournaments in a month, than American competitors can afford in a year.

I don't have the actual budget, but just eyeballing the costs, it looked to me like the cost to the USTU of fielding this Junior National Team was about $45,000. I understand the junior team trip to Turkey two years ago was budgeted at $80,000. The same size team from any European country was about $15,000. That's about what it cost the contingent of parents, instructors, and personal coaches that accompanied the US team. Seems to be quite a bit of money out there, we just can't get it directed to directly support the US team efforts.

Its a problem for which there is not a clear solution. We are, with Mexico and Canada, island nations separated from the great bulk of the international Taekwondo community by expensive airfare, substantial time commitments, and jet lag. Even if cost were not a factor, travel time alone for Americans adds at least two days to a tournament commitment to an international event outside of the United States. If an American were to average two tournaments a month, cost being no expense, to attend available international tournaments in Europe, for instance, that would be nearly 50 extra days a year in travel status not imposed on European competitors, just because of our distance. That's a lot of lost training time, not to mention jet lag effects, and that would become a disadvantage all by itself. So, money isn't the cure either. We have a severe geographical impediment to which there is no obvious solution that meets all of our needs.

Taekwondo has grown immensely in the United States over the past decade. Our Taekwondo competitors are getting better and better. Just not as fast as those of many other nations. The USTU is doing as much as any other national federation to develop the athletes. The problem is it is the only organization focused on that task. Compare that with 28 equivalent national organizations covering a similar geographic area -- and a similar population -- in Europe, all developing 28 national coaching staffs, 28 national team opportunities, with separate dedicated national funding, national staffs, national Olympic support.

Propose a solution that overcomes that.

Years ago, the USTU authorized itself to develop regionally. It has done nothing in that direction. That might be a small step to creating the kind of organizational structure that looks "European." Mexico, Cuba and Canada need to be important parts of US Taekwondo development. Mutual welfare and benefit. State organizations need to develop the initiative to take advantage of the powers they already have to promote and develop Taekwondo. And, support. Parents and instructors too easily slide into the game of blame when little Bobby doesn't win. I know that over a decade ago, you developed the US Open as an international venue in the United States, and that you have worked diligently since then to create opportunities. But, these opportunities clearly take money, time, and a lot of work. I see how much hard work Sammy Pejo and the national USTU office had to put in to get this team organized and to Ireland.

From the caliber and quality of the young people I was privileged to work with on the US Team to Ireland, I can emphatically state that these kids are as good as any in the world, and our national staff works as hard as any in the world, against substantial odds, to help these kids. This national team was, to me, proof of the high quality of what we are doing and accomplishing in the United States.  

Best regards, Kim Sol
Head of US Team, 3rd World Junior Championships.