Taekwondo, Sports: Ontario Taekwondo Classic

my taekwondo club hosted our 23 annual taekwondo tournement the " Ontario classic"

Variety Village hosts Ontario taekwondo championship
New tradition will include competition for special needs athletes
Close to a thousand world class special needs and able-bodied athletes from across North America are expected in the south end of Scarborough this weekend to kick off the 23rd Ontario Classic Tae Kwon Do championships.
Variety Village, the largest sports training and fitness centre for youths with special needs in North America, will host the Ontario Tae Kwon Do Association (OTA)-sanctioned event for the first time, in coordination with Tae Kwon Do Grand Master Young Su Choung, an eighth-degree black belt and one of the world's most respected martial artists.

The two-day event consists of two divisions: the sparring and the patterns or forms portion. The club's special needs colour belts athletes will compete in the forms portion of the tournament with a smaller contingent of black belts competing in the sparring segment.
The event's transition from its former Etobicoke site at Humber College to its new location at Variety Village marks the beginning of a new tradition for the annual competition, says Chris Murdoch, the head coach of the Scarborough site of Young Choung's Tae Kwon Do Academy. The academy, which has seven off-site clubs across the city, is headquartered in the west end at Bathurst and St. Clair and has run programs out of the Village for 16 years now, something Murdoch says speaks volumes about the commitment Master Choung has shown toward encouraging athletes with special needs to participate in the art.
The club's Coach of the Year recipient this year, Murdoch expects the annual event to quickly take hold here.

"We're actually quite excited about this," she said, of the new rite, adding that the club now takes in 120 members. "We've been working with Master Choung for years, helping run this event at other sites, and we knew we were now ready to showcase what the club has to offer," she said. "It will be the first of many (events), that's for sure."
For some, the meet is a precondition for further national and international competition, while for others it's simply an occasion to test their taekwondo mettle.
"Because, as with any martial art, you can train and compete within the four walls of your club, but the best way to truly get better is to compete against others," she noted.
Variety Village, which historically has been the only taekwondo club to include special needs kids, will field 14 of the 17 disabled entrants this year. The club, located at 3701 Danforth Ave., is also the first to incorporate a unique forms component to its martial art program. "We're the only club that teaches students in wheelchairs, we have set forms for them as well," Murdoch said.
The international governing body for taekwondo, the World Tae Kwon Do Federation, was successful in seeing the sport included as an Olympic sport recently. Organizers are now working on seeing high-level special needs athletes compete on the world stage. "And with that in mind, our goal is to get these athletes ready for them (the Paralympics)," the coach said.

"It is on the horizon actually," she said, citing just how close the process has come to fruition. "And now, other clubs are aware of that, and are now looking at training these athletes so they can be a part of that adventure as well," she said. The event, which features Junior A (born 1989-92), Junior B (born 1993-95) and Junior C (born in 1996 and after), starts Saturday morning at 9:30 and runs until approximately 7:30 p.m. and will continue again Sunday at 9:00 a.m. and will run until around noon.