Dream Comes True in Dublin

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Aimee Maund competes in the ITF World Championships in Dublin, Ireland last month. Photo submitted

Tae Kwon-Do black belt returns home after competing at ITF worlds

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Aimee Maund just arrived back home after competing at the ITF World Championships in Dublin. Photo by Jeremy Broadfield

Chestermere’s Aimee Maund, a Tae Kwon-Do black belt, has just returned home after competing at the pinnacle of her sport, the International Tae Kwon-Do Federation (ITF) World Champion.
“This tournament, every ring, every match was just amazing,” she said.
“It truly was the best of the best.”
The tournament was hosted in Dublin, Ireland from Oct. 9-15.
Maund has been dreaming of competing at the ITF Worlds since she first took up Tae Kwon-Do, unfortunately for much of her career, Maund has been part of a different Tae Kwon-Do Federation and not eligible to compete.
With a recent change in Tae Kwon-Do Federations, Maund was finally able to qualify for the ITF Worlds.
Maund competed in both the power breaking and sparring at worlds.
While she didn’t earn a medal, which is always her goal going into competition, Maund said she had a great time and has no regrets about her performance at the World Championships.
In the highly competitive power breaking, Maund just missed the podium earning a spot in a five-way tie for fourth-place.
“I placed fourth out of 40, so I felt pretty good with that,” she said.
Highlighting both the difficulty and skill needed to win, only the gold medal competitor managed to successfully complete all three board breaking techniques and she had to be seen by medical staff after for cuts to her feet.
“They earned it they smashed through them all,” she said.
Maund has been successful in all three techniques at other competitions and said it just wasn’t her day on competition day in Dublin.
“With breaking its kind of one of those things that’s so particular,” she said.
“I can break all of those breaks,” she said.
Power breaking was the highlight of her competition. Maund lost her first sparring match and was knocked out of the competition.
Having come into the tournament with a World Cup gold in power breaking last year and seeing that translated into fourth at the ITF Worlds, Maund said that on the day of her sparring match she was expecting really tough competition.
In her competition, Maund fell behind in points early and wasn’t able to make them up.
“Fair’s fair, she was faster,” said Maund of her opponent.
Going into the tournament, Maund had planned for this to be her first and last ITF World Championship as a competitor and focus on getting her students to future tournaments.
However now that she’s had a taste of what the competition is like and come so close to winning a medal, Maund has changed her mind.
“This was my first world championships but it’s not going to be my last,” she said.
Maund is already starting to plan her training and competition schedule to earn a return to the worlds with an eye to getting on the podium.
“I was so close to hitting the podium, with not a whole ton of extra effort I’m sure I can make that podium,” said Maund.
She plans to change her training to include more actual practice breaks to build up her consistency so that next time there is no question that she’ll succeed with all three breaking techniques.
Her focus will be on the power breaking but Maund also plans to work on her sparring to become faster and more flexible to be more competitive in that as well.
In addition to a changed training regime, Maund is also planning to compete as much as she can between now and the next ITF championship in about a year and a half.
First up Maund will be competing again at the World Cup, hosted next year in Australia.
She hopes to be going with some of her students and help them to qualify for the ITF championships with her.

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In response to Canada's Online News Act and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) removing access to local news from their platforms, Anchor Media Inc encourages you to get your news directly from your trusted source by bookmarking this site and downloading the Rogue Radio App. Send your news tips, story ideas, pictures, and videos to info@anchormedia.ca


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