ATA referees perform at the Australian Nationals in Sydney – 4-6 Sept 2008
Three referees from the Australian Taekwondo Academy represented Western Australia in the Australian Taekwondo Nationals and Open Championship this past week. Richard Huynh, Jed Calicdan and Roy Khoh. One other WA referee could not make the trip at the last moment while 2 from the SouthWest group officiated as poomsae judges..
The three of us from ATA went to referee on both the sparring competition days; on Friday and Saturday. We arrived there late Wednesday night so that we could also compete in the poomsae, technical day on Thursday.
Touching down in Sydney approximately 20:30 on Wednesday, we caught a cab to Pullman Hotel inside the Olympic Park precinct. The Pullman is a 5-star hotel that had just recently opened operations 2 days before we arrived. One of the waitresses, during breakfast, had mentioned that to me and also stated that there was some special discount because of the opening week. Either way, I was quite surpised and very pleased with the hotel accommodation that the referees received this tournament.
One of the worst aspects about staying inside the Olympic Park is that there wasn’t much by way of food late in the evening. We walked out around 9:45pm to find something to eat. There is McDonalds, Subway, Gloria Jeans and a Bar & Bistro nearby – all of which were closed. We found out on another day that they all close at 8:00pm. We even tried catching the train that first night but it was not operating that day. It just so happened a bus drove by as we were walking back to the hotel and we caught it, not knowing where we’d end up – as long as it led us to food. Being lost, after dinner, we caught a cab back.
The actual stadium venue was just a little over 5 minutes walk away from the hotel. Many players stayed in one of the three hotels in the Olympic Park – Novatel, Ibis and Pullman. All three hotels were pretty much right next to each other. The train station was also a stone’s throw away from the hotels.
Thursday was a fine morning to walk to the venue – competitors registered from around 8:30am and competition started approximately 9:15am. Us referees from ATA did not get onto the courts until approximately 4:00pm. It was quite worth the wait. I performed first and beat 6 other individuals to win Gold. Jed was on next and beat 2 others to win his Gold, then Richard comfortably won over 2 other players. This process still took quite a bit of time and we left the venue before the end of the day’s events. We left around 7:30pm or so. We had heard competition continued to around 9:30pm. We joined the majority of the ATA members for a dinner that evening in Lidcombe.
The next two days were quite intensive. Starting from arrival at around 8:30am and finishing the day’s work around 8:30pm. The weather outside was hammering down with rain at certain periods, and the cold temperature carried inside to the venue also.
The first fight of the event was covered by Channel 9′s ‘A Current Affair’ on Court 2. So maybe some viewers have seen the footage. I’ve also heard that the Current Affair show in Sydney would have different stories to the ones in Perth, anyway.
Richard and Jed somehow got to referee-judge on the same court (#5) while I enjoyed my experience with a mix of referees from all over. It was a pleasure to award points where they were merited (as a corner judge) and also to penalise foul play that is not within the conduct of our sport. I know what you might be thinking and I assure you, the enjoyment in giving out those penalties come in the fight that ensues.
It is quite surprising how much control the centre referee has over the fight. There were, of course, many matches that just went smoothly without penatlies or much intervention from the centre referee. As a corner judge, some of the matches even appear ‘boring’, that’s why you sometimes see the referee signalling the fighters to engage in a fight, rather than waiting and sizing each other up. Same with the clenching, I’d rather see the fighters attempt to fight close contact or at least break out from a clench quickly to continue the fight. Many fighters also having holding or grabbing actions when they clench. Sometimes, giving out those penalties and verbalising my intentions for a spectator friendly fight worked. Others, not so – and those are the ones where some players got full deduction points. My enjoyment comes when the players are penalised, learn from it and then continue to fight in good action packed clean fashion.
Richard went one further and even congratulated one outstanding coach for good conduct. In return, he received praise for his refereeing from other coaches and players. Richard is a higher class referee than myself and even though he was on a different court, I was happy to share a room to be able to exchange ideas and experiences to become an even better referee.
I can only hope that I can earn the same praise from coaches and players that I had refereed in the past and the many more to come in the future.
Tags: judge, national tournament, rules, wisdom
