2008 Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships in Canada
Kim Seng, ATA Peel Region Master Instructor attended the 4th Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada during November 2008. He was the Referee Chairman for the event that attracted 200 players from 6 countries from host country Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Wales and Northern Ireland. India and Nigeria were entered but they experienced difficulties in getting visas and missed out on the event.
The International Referees were appointed from Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Scotland, Malaysia, USA. Nigeria and India had visa difficulties and were unable to officate. Four operating courts were used with the LaJust electronic body protectors being a first for the Commonwealth event. Canada won the event as the overall champion country.
The International Referees: Kim Seng (Chairman), Maher Magableh, Tony Achkouti, Jacques Ayotte, Tracey Bonertz, Ken Froese, William Jones, Martin Kenneally, Song Chul Kim, Linda Kwan, Pierre LaChance, Gilles LeClerc, Babara Marian, Stephane Menard, Susanne Mitchell, Paolo Polano, Kirk Sinclair, Eric Wah, Choo-Boon Lau, Tsu-Ching Wong, Kevin Woon, Vijay Chhika, Stan Wagner, Bill Darlington, Anne Chase and Randy Waitman.
Canada’s National Referees assisting as recorders, inspection and weigh-in: Alison Braun, Glen Berger, Mike LeCren, David Saucier, Terry Webb.
Best Male referee was awarded to Song Chul Kim of British Columbia, Canada; Best Female Referee was awarded to Susanne Mitchell of Saskatchewan, Canada; and Recognition Referee Award went to Vijay Chhika of Wellington, New Zealand.
The next 5th Commonwealth Championships will be hosted by India in New Delhi during January 2011. There is a discussion topic in the Forum section under Sparring: Electronic Body Protectors. you can view the comments and join in the discussion. click on the link in the comments of this post.
Roy Khoh says:
December 23rd, 2008 at 7:53 am
Wow! I’m interested to find out how the LaJust EBP went. Is there any videos of it being used?
Kim Seng says:
December 27th, 2008 at 12:54 am
The LaJust electronic body protectors (EBP’s) were used successfully at the Commonwealth Championships. The scoring levels were good and followed the success experienced at the Pan American Championships held one month earlier.
The body kick points were scored by the electronic sensors while 3 corner judges scored the body punch points and the 2 points head kicks. The players had to wear foot “socks” that had electronic sensors embedded along the in-step, the sole of the foot and the bottom heel of the foot. The body protectors had sensors embedded on the permitted areas on the body protectors. When the foot connected with the body protector, the sensors trigger off a pulse and coupled with the impact force level required for each weight division, the point would be registered and displayed on the monitor. The scoring points were quite frequent and some matches went the distance of the 7 point gap and even the 12 point ceiling.
There are a few videos put up on you tube and here are the links you can check them out.
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=T_OcHzUj3as
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Whcb_Hx4Giw
this is the LaJust website but the models shown in this website is not quite the latest ones or the ones used at the Commonwealth Championships, but the general technology is being described.
http://www.lajust.com/
and a demonstration of its use: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=NJlXgbw4BIQ&feature=related
Roy Khoh says:
January 1st, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I’d like to refer future comments about this and other Electronic Body Protectors in the forum section here.
There has been more comments posted in the Forum section.
Kim Seng says:
January 26th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Poomsae was also held at the Commonwealth Championships. Here is Kerstin Oberprieler’s poomsae effort where she won silver medal placing for Australia.