1999 ITF WORLD CHAMPS NEWS

THESE ARE THE DAILY UPDATES WE RECEIVED FROM THE NZ TEAM IN ARGENTINA

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Mr Graham Patterson qualifying for the finals at the world champs

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Sorry this one is a little late, people, but we got home from the airport and I slept nearly 24 hours straight...

 

September 5 - Sunday

 

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS - LAST DAY - Team Event Finals

 

With Saturday being our last night in Argentina, many of the kiwis took the opportunity to go out clubbing.  Tam and Aaron had discovered a place called "Buenos Aires News" the night before that they'd decided people had to try... "That's the best nightclub I've bever been in", Aaron told us. 

 

But some of us didn't go out... we had a job to do.  Aaron Lange qualified us for Team Special Technique back in Rosario, and the competition was today.

 

Because of this, I'm afraid I don't have a great amount of detail to pass on about the Team Sparring and Team Patterns semis and finals... our attention was elsewhere... but here's what I remember...

 

Female Team Pattern Semis were fairly predictable... Argentina v Germany and Korea v Poland.  The Germans and the Poles were good, but they didn't have quite the crackle of the Argentines or the quintuplet precision of the Koreans.  The Argentinian girls are very huggy... when they win they tend to go into a huddle and bounce up and down in unison... must be a cultural thing...

 

The Korean girls, on the other hand, like to turn to the audience and wave with both hands above their heads.  They really look like stranded shipwreck victims trying to flag down a passing plane... it's even worse when they're collecting medals, but this time all medallists got bunches of flowers as well, which made it harder for them to wave properly.  Heh.

 

Male Team Pattern Semis were Korea v Japan and KFJ v Uzbekistan.  Japanese marching was weird... moving forward only about half a foot with each step, knees coming up to nearly chest height.  Not the best effect I've ever seen. Their patterns were good, but they seemed to lack some of the let's-all-blink-in-unison training of the Koreans... some people performed techniques slightly differently.  Win to Korea.

 

The KFJ-Uzbekistan match was quick... they marched on, bowed, then the ref raised the KFJ captain's (Hwoarang's!) hand.  Win to KFJ.

 

Moments later, Master Renee Sereff - jury for the ring - came on the PA system.  "We feel we should explain the result you just saw in Ring 4..." Apparently one of the Uzbek team had a knee injury, and they'd subbed in someone else.  Can't do that.  Against the rules.  Hope bronze goes well with your tracksuit.

 

I didn't really see much of the finals... Korea won both.  The Argentinian home crowd did it's best to distract them while they performed... booing and whistling, shouting... but once they finished their patterns, the crowd applauded.  Weird.  We figure it was obvious enough that they deserved the win and the crowd respected that, but we felt that the distraction thing was kinda unsporting...

 

I didn't really see any of the Team Sparring Semis, and not much of the Finals... Korean girls took down Argentina 3-0 in the Finals, from memory, but in the Men's Finals Slovenia put up a good fight against Poland... winning at least one bout, I think.  A well deserved silver, but Poland definitely earned their gold.

 

Team Power, I just didn't see any of.  It's much harder to tell across a stadium how power breaking is going than special technique anyway.  Sorry about that... but Korea won the Female and England the Male.  Seems to be one of England's stronger events... they took gold in the Female event in St Petersburg.

 

In Female Special Technique, it was odd to note that for high kick and turning kick, some countries were performing a bootstrap takeoff - taking off and kicking with the same leg, no scissor action.  Weird.  There's no power in that... but maybe it gives a height advantage?  You don't need much power - the women were breaking kiddy boards, I think, and they were clamped reasonably firmly - so maybe we should experiment and see if we can get better heights jumping like that?  *Ugly* kick, but if it wins medals...?

 

Male Special Technique - I can tell you a little more about this one.

 

The draw was random - Argentina were first up, New Zealand were 6th, Korea next to last.  Greece were last up out of 13 (17?  I think it was 13.), since they were Team Sparring while most of us were breaking.

 

Argentina broke two boards - the Ogre missed the high kick, the fourth dan missed the back kick, and they missed the turning kick.  Their Individual Special Technique competitor broke his reverse turning kick.  The last break - the overhead kick - involved leaping over two wires (made visible by a couple of folded sheets of paper draped over each) 70 cm high, 4 m apart. Their breaker pinged the wires, but they didn't fall, and he broke the board - a valid break.  Cut it fine, though.

 

Brazil was horribly unlucky... they broke one (overhead kick as well, I think?), but they gave both the high kick and the reverse turning kick fairly solid hits.  They simply failed to break.  Bad luck.

 

A couple of other countries missed all five, then we were up.  Not quite up for the breaks we'd been working on - Graham had injured his foot performing his medal-winning turning kick the day before, so our sixth man - Chris Fisher - was taking the high kick, Ry the turning kick, and I the reverse turning kick... a slight reshuffling of our order of battle.

 

Chris and I weren't really close to our heights.  Aaron and Ry made superb efforts - Aaron was the only competitor in the initial round to touch the board with the midair kick, and Ry reached his board with his turning kick, but neither broke.

 

We set up for Justin's overhead kick.  This was our most likely shot - it really didn't look that far!  We couldn't figure why so many world-class competitors couldn't jump this distance...?

 

But Justin "Best Side Kick In The World" Jessett could.  And unlike Argentina and Brazil, he didn't even come *near* the wires.  A beautiful clean jump... a beautiful clean break.  And, of course, a beautiful clean break to finish it off.  Hold for two seconds... then celebrate!

 

Seven more countries, I think, to break... as long as nobody else broke two or more, we were still in with a chance for the silver.  We sort of couldn't help applauding every missed break...

 

Czech Republic broke the turning kick.  But only the turning kick.  We were still in it.

 

Then Korea came up to bat.  Ulch.  Traditionally Korea are very strong in this event... their Team are all six footers plus!

 

High kick - a hit, but no break.

 

Midair kick - a miss.

 

Reverse turning kick - a miss!  One more miss, and they can't beat us...

 

Turning kick - a touch, no break.  That's it!

 

Overhead kick - he set the wire jangling, but it didn't fall.  From where I was standing, it actually looked like he aborted the kick and broke the board with a punch, but I was at a poor angle a whole stadium away - the judges certainly didn't disqualify the break, so it must have been okay. One for Korea.

 

Greece was the last team up - they absolutely destroyed the high kick, but missed all the others.  Do we train differently to the rest of the world for overhead kick?

 

At this point, the Argentinian team and crowd started to go a bit nuts - they'd just won their first gold medal of the Champs!  (They had a stack of silvers already, but I guess it's not the same... they ended up with two, also winning Female Team Special...)

 

The five teams who'd broken one got called back for a breakoff - the Special Technique area was on the other side of the Stadium to the seats New Zealand had staked out.  We'd decided that whichever kick was chosen, Aaron Lange would perform it - except for the overhead kick, which was the property of on Mr Justin "Best Side Kick In The World" Jessett.

 

In the event, the designated kick was high kick.  Brazil went up to break... and Aaron realised he didn't have his competitor tag with him.  He sprinted back to the NZ area to find it, and Andrew started to get Ry ready to take over in case he didn't make it back in time.

 

But he did, with seconds to spare...

 

Alas, he missed by an inch or less.  But so had Brazil... and Czech and Korea went on to do the same.  But then Greece lined up - and they had hit this kick with plenty of height to spare in the first round.  Kablam! Silver medal for Greece.

 

Two bronzes still in play - the designated kick this time was turning kick.

 

Brazil broke.  Aaron got ready.

 

And got caught up on a technicality... he took a dry run at the board, then reached up his hand to gauge the height.  Both of which count as one "measure" each... and only one measure is allowed per break.  The judge held up two fingers, then gave a "no break" signal.  New Zealand were out.

 

Czech and Korea both broke turning kick, then went on to break the midair kick, which Brazil missed - bronzes to Czech and Korea.

 

We were upset at losing our chance at a medal over a technicality, but unfortunately it's in the rules, so we had no choice but to accept it.  It was Aaron's first Champs, so it's just an experience thing... I know I cringed the moment he put his hand up, and Graham across the stadium did the same... we *knew* that it might be a very bad thing, and it was.

 

If the first kick designated had been the overhead, or maybe the midair kick... if Graham had been uninjured... if Aaron or Ry had been a little luckier when they hit their boards in the first round... if, if... we're sorry, New Zealand... we gave it a damned good try.

 

While the last of the sparring was rounding up, I was stunned to see Paul Germain himself over by the New Zealand area, talking to Nikki Mantjika and a couple of other people.  "I was wondering if anyone wanted to swap a tracksuit about my size?", he was saying.

 

Poor Nikki... she didn't recognise him.  By the time someone told her, I was already there, letting him know I was keen...

 

Nikki got him to sign her tracksuit instead, and several of the team got photos with him... he told me his Team Canada tracksuit was back at the hotel, and to meet him after the medals so we could go swap.

 

Wow.

 

After the contest there were a couple of demonstration items from local Argentinian practitioners... I don't remember anything particularly exciting from these.  But while they were setting up for the medal presentations, we did a demonstration of our own.

 

We'd had a request - again - to do the haka on stage.  But, we were told, they wanted it *after* the medals now.  Not acceptable, we decided... everyone would have gone by the time all the medals were given out.  But there was nobody on stage right *now*... and Rua happened to be with us, and the security guards knew he was an official...

 

We all marched up onto the stage, jackets on, hoods up, heads down... with Gabriela and all her interpreters standing behind us as we arrayed in a half circle on the stage.  The lights and TV cameras focussed on us...

 

On the first call from Tam and Aaron, the jackets came off, leaving us bare-chested.  (Pause for crowd response...)

 

On the second call, our heads came up, to pick a member of the audience and start staring them down...

 

Then the haka began in earnest, and we were *loud*.

 

Unfortunately for Aaron, his thigh slapping in the middle was *very* enthusiastic, and we were all wearing our pop-stud track pants.  One leg tore completely open, leaving the leg flapping and his underwear exposed. He realised he was slapping bare skin, and whipped behind the line to fix it up... returning to much cheering from the audience...

 

We finished the haka with a great response from the crowd. then parted the line to bring the translators forward.  They hadn't received the recognition throughout the tournament we felt they deserved, so here was our chance to present them to the crowd as valued members of the tournament team.  (Plus, they all thought we were the best country at the tournament, and had been in the habit of accidentally deserting their designated teams to spend time with us... heh...)

 

When we felt the crowd had got the point, we all went into a huddle and started doing that silly Argentinian bounce-in-unison thing, and began singing the "Ole, ole-ole" song we'd heard so much from the home crowd.  We didn't know all the words, but it didn't matter... by the time we were halfway through the second line, a couple of thousand Argentinians had taken over... which was the result we were after...

 

Medal presentations.  The North Korean anthem about fifty thousand times. Aargh.  But at least we got to see the NZ flag going up when Gray collected his bronze... cool :)

 

After the medals, they presented the trophies for best overalls.  Best Male, Best Female, Best Male Team, Best Female Team, and Best Country all went to Koreans.  Surprise.  A special award was given to our friend Master Leong Wai Meng - he is standing down from the Tournaments Committee after a long term of service.  Paul Germain was presented a pretty glass-and-gold-leaf rosebowl in recognition of his career - he is officially resigning from competition - his first Champs was in 1981!

 

Then Master Galarraga turned over the ITF flag to Master Bos, who will be running the 2001 Champs in Italy, officially closing the Champs.

 

Let the celebrations begin - they brought onstage the band who had written the "Official World Champs Theme Music" we'd been reglaed with every time Argentina entered the arena, to play it for us live...

 

Oops!  Stop the music!  Remember that Best Overall Male trophy we gave to that Korean guy?  We just checked our addition, and it actually should have gone to this Polish guy!  Dreadfully sorry.  Everybody clap or something.

 

Heh.  I enjoyed that bit... it's nice seeing a best overall go to a non-korean...

 

Most of New Zealand headed off, but I was waiting for Paul Germain so I could go get a tracksuit :)  It takes this man a long time to make his way through a crowd of TKDin... he's lucky to get three steps without people stopping him for autographs or photographs.  He's very good about it... seems willing to go along with most photographs.  The most common was the arm-around-the-shoulders shot, but I saw a few side-by-side guarding blocks, and at least one I'm-sparring-Paul-Germain! shot.

 

Eventually he finished up his interviews and autographs, and we walked back to his hotel.  We chatted a little about NZ and Canada (especially Quebec) on the way... nice guy!  The arrogance he displays in the ring doesn't show up outside it.

 

When we got to the hotel he signed the tracksuit - his last Team Canada competition tracksuit - for me and we swapped.  I'm going to have to get the signature embroidered... don't want it vanishing in the wash!  We talked a while longer, and he expressed an interest in coming out to see New Zealand some time.  I said we'd love a sparring seminar... "Oh, sure, why not? Here's my email address..."

 

How about it, people?  Do we want a seminar from the most famous sparrer in ITF history?

 

Around then I had to head back to our hotel to be sure I didn't miss the bus to the airport.  Shame.  I'm sure glad we had quality tracksuits this year, though!

 

I got back to the hotel to find some of the German team had dropped by to visit.  Poor guys.  They were paying $50 a night at the Promenade, and we were paying $55 at the Presidente.  Just looking around the lobby was bad enough for them... then we told them about the breakfasts.  Heh.

 

A few of the team were getting a touch tipsy... their first chance to drink in over eight months, in some cases.  (Andrew imposed a no alcohol rule from Jan 1st...)  It was a happy atmosphere - the Germans were great guys, and people were having a good time.

 

Eventually they had to leave - we saw them off with a few verses of "I wish that all the ladies..." - it had become sort of an unofficial team anthem. (Try http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/eaton_chris/songs/Ladies.htm if you need to know more...)

 

We had a couple of presentations to make at this point, to Carmen and Andrew as Manager and Coach.  Both got framed photos of the team from our last camp in Taupo, and Carmen received a Lladro ceramic horse - it held special significance for her, as apparent from the emotional display :)  Andrew got an official Champs jacket... he'd seen them on sale in Rosario, but they'd run out of stock before he could buy one.  We bought one for him in Buenos Aires, and Nicola Mitchell played shepherd to make sure he never actually found the stall himself.  Aren't we sneaky?  :)

 

The bus arrived - we all got on board, along with Gabriela, her husband, and Cecilia.  (Gabriela was wearing a dress that Sherylene had insisted she buy - she was going straight to the party we had to miss after the airport.)  We also stopped at the Waldorf (ick) to pick up a couple of Australians who were catching the same plane.

 

The bus trip was a noisy one.  What with singing, chanting, hakas, and shots of vodka, a lot of people were getting very loud.  Poor Gabriela - her husband was getting into the spirit, and as a PE teacher, he was quite acrobatic enough to turn somersaults on the handgrips of the bus aisle...

 

Oh, yeah.  I forgot "Waltzing Matilda".  I'm not sure how that happened... the Aussies were outnumbered 20-2...

 

We arrived at the airport, and checked our baggage in no problems... time to say goodbye to the Argentinians.  Gabriela and Cecilia both got a small gift and a flower, and we gave them a softened-down rendition of the haka.  (We didn't scream in their faces :) )  They found that kinda moving... both were in tears by the end...

 

Goodbyes were made - Carmen, Carolina and Alan Gillon were also staying, moving on to other destinations the next day - and we went through the gates.

 

We were starving, so we bought some food from the little cafe in the departure lounge.  Tam used up his last pesos buying candy from the souvenir shop - he got quite an impressive haul for about (I think) $7!  (Pesos can't be exchanged in NZ, so best to spend them all before you go...)  We were definitely still in Argentina - my ham and cheese sandwich came on dry bread, with no butter!  Aargh!

 

I can't speak for everyone, but I think a lot of us went unconscious early into the flight... I think I slept for five or six hours before waking up halfway through "Notting Hill"... (The other movie was Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence in "Life"...)  I then drifted in and out a bit, so I can't really say much about the flight.  Maybe Gray will put in another update with more about it...

Arrival at Auckland.  Wow.  Good to be home... I'm so *tired*... for the past week, it's been up at 7ish to get to the Tournament on time... leave the venue at 10pm... back from dinner by midnight... write an update... bed by 1:30... ulch.

 

We picked up our luggage, and had the idea that we should send Graham through the gates first for the people who had come to meet us at the airport.  But then Barbs found the Duty Free stores.  So we scratched that idea.

 

We went through Customs, waited for Graham and Barbs, met our welcomers, waited for Graham and Barbs, told some stories, waited for Graham and Barbs, showed off new tracksuits and t-shirts and souvenirs, waited for Graham and Barbs, took some photos... and *finally* Graham and Barbs arrived :)  We gave Graham a round of applause as he emerged, and the medal was duly admired.  About then the Palmerston North people had to head off to catch a flight, so we all said our goodbyes, and the Aucklanders and Wellingtonians went to grab breakfast at McDonalds.

 

That's it, people... we're back!  And I feel about ready to sleep *another* 24 hours...

 

Keep an eye out for photos and anecdotes... still some to come... :)

This may be my last chance to write before we leave tonight, so I´ll fill in all the details from New Zealand.   But this morning we came close to another medal in Male Team Special Technique - Argentina was the only country to break two boards, winning the gold, while Justin Jessett broke the overhead kick to tie New Zealand in second place with Greece, Czech, Brazil, and Korea.   Unfortunately, in the break-off the silver went to Greece and the bronze to Czech.  I´ll tell you all about it.  But right now we have to go watch some finals and see Graham get his medal... and then we´re on a plane.   See you all at Auckland Airport, 5am Tuesday morning...!   September 4 - Saturday - Day 13 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 7 - Individual Finals We arrived at the venue today about 9:30am... we´d arrived at 8:30 the day before and nothing had happened for ages.  They´d just really got to the point where things could begin when we arrived today - well timed!   Competing this morning in sparring we had Hong Looi in Heavyweight and Ian Walton in Hyperweight.  Ian was right near the end of his draw, and Hong had a bye in the first round, so there was a long time before either of them were on.   Laura has a pet Puerto Rican, and Nigina Curbanova from Tajikistan has befriended the New Zealand team (she only loves us for our funny hats... she traded Lawrence for one of them today...), and we´re kinda fond of Germany and Slovenia after the Team Sparring, so even when no kiwis are on, we can usually find someone to cheer for.  USA has always been friendly with us, and of course Jamaica this year... plus whoever´s competing against Argentina or Korea...   Nigina Curbanova has some of our girls slightly awestruck... at the age of 21, she´s a fourth dan, has competed in five or six Worlds and Junior Worlds, has several World Championship medals to her name (she´s just come away with bronze in both lightweight sparring and 4th dan patterns), and has recently completed a law degree to boot.   ("I feel so old..." - Sherylene.)   Tajikistan have done very well these Champs, and last time as well, and Miss Curbanova has agreed to try and talk some of the boys into demonstrating some ot the sorts of drills they use for training so we can get videos... we can always use extra ideas!   As well as Hong and Ian in sparring, we also had Graham and Nikki in Power Test and Aaron Lange in Special Technique today.   Both competitions had a qualifying break to reach the finals - side kick for Power, and high kick for Special.  For Power Test, they have a ridiculous setup for the board holders - they lift off the floor or even slide when the boards are kicked!  All the need do is set them up against a wall!  Anyway, in Power Test, Nikki broke all three of her boards to qualify for the final, and Graham broke one of his six boards to qualify - one of only three people to do so!  (New Zealand, Paraguay, and Korea.)    In the final, Nikki didn´t break any boards with her knifehand or turning kick, and thus didn´t medal :(  Graham broke one of five with his turning kick (if you´ve ever seen a Patterson turning kick, that´ll tell you the sort of problems we´re having with the board holders!), and nothing with his knifehand, reverse turning kick, or punch (unless you count the skin on his knuckles...), but Paraguay broke all four boards with the knifehand, and Korea had qualified with three boards on the side kick, leaving Graham with the Bronze.   One Bronze medal seems to be a New Zealand tradition... but we still have Team Special Technique tomorrow to try and add to the collection!   Aaron Lange is one of the shortest in the special technique competition, and while he didn´t break the board to qualify, he did touch it... a feat many of the taller competitors didn´t manage!  Well done, Aaron!   Ian was the first of our sparrers to compete today, drawing USA.  We urged him on with a haka while he prepared to step into the ring... and then waited five minutes when they decided they had to sweep off the mats.  Aargh.  Anyway, eventually the bout began. The American got well and truly Walted... Ian´s hands following him whenever he tried to disengage and often as not driving him out of the ring or down to the mat.  In two rounds, he clocked up seven warnings (totalling two minus points per judge!) to Ian´s two (no minus points).  We were all confident he´d been slaughtered... a clear victory to Ian!   But the ref declared it a draw... and in the third round the American took it.   We don´t have any problem with the third round decision... but we don´t have a clue how the first two rounds resulted in a draw!  I hope these updates don´t sound like a They´re-all-out-to-cheat-NZ conspiracy theory, but we seem to be getting a lot of very strange results :(   (Graham was accidentally left off the list for Power Test, but we sorted that out... just as well, huh?  It also nearly caused a problem when they tallied results, because he was also not on their master scoresheet, or something.  But we caught and sorted that one too.  Whew!)   Andrew protested the result, getting to look at the scoresheets, but getting little further insight into what had happened.  No change to the outcome, but at least (for some reason) they didn´t charge us $US200 for the protest...   Hong, our other fighter of the day, took on Ukraine, looking very... unusual, with silver hair mascara in the short fuzz on his recently shaved head.  He fought well, but was not quite as relaxed as we´ve seen him, and the Ukrainian scored with a lot of flying punches for double points that Hong didn´t make up.   That´s it for the kiwis today.   One of the highlight fights today was the Men´s Hyperweight Semifinal between Pierre Guinette of Canada - twice World Champ - and the German Andreas Hamper (blondie-boy from Team Sparring vs Argentina...)  Pierre is one of the Big Names in ITF sparring, and Andreas Hamper, while not a familiar name, is turning out to be someone to watch.  Very arrogant in the ring, but very good.   The bout was fast and hard... it´s exciting to watch a perfect dodging back kick foiled by a quick sidestep-and-lunge to rain punches in... both these boys are experts.   Joe Bosse - we met him last time in St Petersburg, great guy - took on Slovenia in another exciting round.  There was one lovely moment when he came speeding in with a sliding front kick... and met a Slovenian fist coming the other way with his forehead.  Thump.  But he was okay, and carried on to win the fight.  Lost to the eventual gold medallist in the next round, however, one round shy of the medals.   After lunch (at about 4 o´clock, or something ridiculous), the finals began.   In Female Microweight, Bianca Tapilatu of Netherlands was all over the Czech girl... not an entirely one-sided fight, but close...   In Lightweight, Julia Cross of Scotland (the only Scottish competitor this year... odd, given their performance last time...) defied the odds to beat the Korean and improve her silver medal from 1997.  Another person we should try and get to NZ some time...   In Middleweight, Argentina vs Korea, the fight went to a third round before a win by Korea.   In Heavy, surprisingly, Germany got the result she actually deserved, along with a gold medal... the Korean didn´t manage to find her Get Out Of Jail Free card in time, I guess...   Nothing particularly exciting in the Korea-Uzbekistan Hyperweight final.  Win to Korea.   Patterns were next, with males and females alternating.    In Female 1st Dan, Korea beat Poland.  The same Polish girl who beat Nikki in the first round.  God knows how.  She *had* improved since yesterday... but we still feel Nikki´s better...   Male 2nd Dan - Uzbekistan vs Korea.  The Korean was literally twice the height of the Uzbekistani - the kid looks about ten years old!  He has to be at least 14.5, or he couldn´t be a second dan, but he looks like a munchkin.  But he can put his legs exactly where he wants them and stop them dead... which he demonstrated amply with Juche and Eui-Am.  A shame that "where he wants them" is usually too high for the pattern, but the judges liked it... win to UZB.  Watch out for this guy...   Male 3rd Dan - grr.  I´m still sure I´m as good as the Russian... if I´d gone through to the semis, he would have been my opponent.  And I think I could have beaten him.  C´est la vie.  The Russian won, too.  Surprised us... we thought the Argentinian was actually better... and they don´t usually need even that much excuse to win...   Female 4th Dan... oh dear.  Noemi Prone of Argentina vs Korea.  No doubt about it, the woman can kick... but like the Uzbekistani kid, she doesn´t have much respect for where the book says those kicks should *go*!  Middle kicks six inches above the head, I´m used to... but I´ve never seen anyone do the pressing kicks in Po-Eun above waist height before!   I felt the win to Korea was deserved... not as showy, but technically more correct.  Opinion in the team is divided, so I won´t stress the point.  But Korea was awarded the gold.   Noemi Prone is sort of a heroine to Argentinian TKD fans... of which there were a lot in the audience.  They started booing and whistling.  Loudly.  (Whistling is bad over here.)   That was the last pattern in that ring, so the judges stood up to leave.  The booing redoubled.  4th Dan male patterns begain in the other ring... they did two patterns, and by the time they´d finished, the audience was still booing, or chanting "AR-GEN-TINA!  AR-GEN-TINA!"  (Don´t know who they were cheering for - it was USA vs Korea in the ring...)   Ah yes... USA vs Korea.  USA - Marcello Cancelliere.  Captain of the US team in St Petersburg, and probably here as well.  Very, very nice patterns.  Downward kick that scares small children when they see how far back his leg stretches.  Korea - that 4th dan who was awarded a victory against Graham in the first round.   In St Petersburg, Marcello came up against a Korean in the semi final.  That Korean was a lot better than this one, and Marcello was better than both of them.  In a repeat of last time, the better man lost.  Poor Marcello is pretty upset about it.   But it´s okay... if the judging made sense, he´d have been losing fairly to Graham in that final.  Marcello´s good, but Graham really is sensational.   The announcer then read out all the patterns results.  Unfortunately, he eventually got to 4th Dan female.  As he read out "1st place... Korea...", the booing started up again.  And kept going.  Argentinians can be irritating sometimes... (like the idiots who light flares and run around cheering inside a building... grrrrr...)   Male sparring and Male special technique finals happened simultaneously.  Nothing particularly interesting in the sparring until Hyperweight... I´ll get to it.   Special technique was done in alphabetical order... Argentina first.  He broke the high kick, the mid-air kick (*that* one was impressive... he made it look easy!), and the reverse turning kick.   He hit the board for the turning kick, but it didn´t break.  His coach started complaining about something to the officials.  You see, you get one attempt, no break, no points.  But the caoch was complaining about the holder moving, or the lights being in the jumper´s eyes, or something.  Who knows.   The Argentinian was lining up for his overhead kick, when they replaced the board for turning kick and gave him another attempt.  Grrr.  I´d like to see any other country get away with that.  He broke it.  Four for four...   But when he did his overhead kick, he knocked over the rear obstacle, and landed on his butt.  Hard to perform a proper guarding block sitting on the ground!  (Ask Jon Sawden...)  The home crowd were cheering that he´d broken the board, but there´s no points the way he did it...   Czech broke every board (losing one point out of three on the turning kick for not breaking it clean through) - the only country to do all five.  Poland and Korea both broke four, failing the mid-air kick... Poland knocked it askew, and Korea overshot... both had the height, but neither broke the board.   No other country broke more than three.   Men´s Hyperweight - the German, Andreas Hamper, actually asked us if we could perform a haka for him when he fought.  We were a little intrigued at the idea, but our voices were all gone from earlier in the day, so we had to decline.  Besides, it´s for the Kiwis...   But we did cheer for him.  Most interesting part of the match - the Pole went for a lunge and fell out of the ring.  Unfortunately, the ring was Ring 4, up on a stage... and the edge he fell out was on the end of the stage.  The German coach dove to try and catch his, but was not in time before he fell off the end.  But no harm done... he got up, shook hand with his opponent, and carried on.   The fight went to a third round, and for a while it looked like the Pole had the advantage... throwing a lot of flying punches every time Hamper closed with his own fists.  But the result went to Germany... a new World Champion!   I saw Stephen Tapilatu - another Big Name in sparring - discussing the third round with him afterwards... he seemed to be pointing out that while the Pole was throwing punches in the air, the were very short, ugly, bent arm hooks, while Hamper´s body punches were nice, straight and sharp.  May have made the difference in scoring.   A breakoff between Korea and Poland in Special Technique followed.  Why only two?  Korea, Poland and Argentina all had four breaks... unless they didn´t count Argentina´s turning kick...?   Anyway, the heights for all kicks were increased and they took a shot at each.   High Kick - both missed. Reverse Turning Kick - both broke. Mid-Air Kick - the Korean broke, but landed on two feet and one hand.  No break.  The Pole was a good foot below the board. Overhead Kick - the Korean knocked over the far obstacle.  No break.  The Pole elected to forfeit this kick. Turning Kick - both broke.   The judges decided to continue with turning kick, increasing the height for each.   At 2.60m, both broke. At 2.70m, both broke. At 2.75m, both broke.   At 2.80m, the Korean missed.  The Pole touched, but failed to break.   On their second attempt at this height, the Korean missed... and the Pole broke!  Finally!  (These two guys broke more boards than the whole Men´s Power Breaking competition... of about 700 boards attempted, the whole competition broke about 10...!)   Women´s Special technique followed, with four competitors in the final... it looks like Korea won, with Czech and Poland taking the other medals, but I´m not sure on that one.   And then the medal presentations followed.  18 divisions, four medals in each.  Flags raising on a winched bar.  National anthems playing.  (Julia Cross´ Scottish anthem on bagpipes and drums was pretty cool, but we got soooo sick of the Korean song...)   We were waiting for the breaking medals so we could cheer for Graham... and at 10pm, we were told they would be presented tomorrow.  Aargh!   Anyway, I´m off to bed... Team Special Technique in the morning.  Let´s see if we can make it two medals... I don´t have full results for Special and Power yet... but I *can* tell you that Bronze in Male Power Test is New Zealand (Graham Patterson)! Individual Patterns and Sparring Medals   Female Patterns   1st Dan Gold   : Korea Silver : Poland Bronze : Czech          Italy 2nd Dan   Gold   : Korea Silver : Czech Bronze : Canada          Nicaragua 3rd Dan   Gold   : Korea Silver : Argentina Bronze : Czech          Sweden   4th  Dan   Gold   : Korea Silver : Argentina (Noemi Prone) Bronze : Uzbekistan          Tajikistan (Nigina Curbanova) Male Patterns   1st Dan   Gold   : Uzbekistan Silver : Malaysia Bronze : Czech          KFJ 2nd Dan Gold   : Uzbekistan Silver : Korea Bronze : Canada          Poland   3rd Dan   Gold   : Russia Silver : Argentina Bronze : Canada          Tajikistan 4th  Dan   Gold   : Korea Silver : USA (Marcello Cancelliere) Bronze : Argentina          Poland Female Sparring   Microweight   Gold   : Netherlands (Bianca Tapilatu) Silver : Czech Bronze : Argentina          Sweden Lightweight Gold   : Scotland (Julia Cross) Silver : Korea Bronze : Argentina          Tajikistan (Nigina Curbanova) Middleweight Gold   : Korea Silver : Argentina Bronze : Brazil          Sweden Heavyweight Gold   : Germany Silver : Korea Bronze : Argentina          Poland Hyperweight Gold   : Korea Silver : Uzbekistan Bronze : Germany          Poland Male Sparring Microweight Gold   : Korea Silver : Brazil Bronze : Kazakstan          Venezuela Lightweight Gold   : Slovenia (Tomas Barada) Silver : Russia Bronze : Argentina          Korea Middleweight Gold   : Brazil Silver : Puerto Rico Bronze : Netherlands (Stephen Tapilatu)          Uzbekistan Heavyweight Gold   : Poland Silver : Greece Bronze : Argentina          England Hyperweight Gold   : Germany (Andreas Hamper) Silver : Poland Bronze : Canada (Pierre Guenette)          Czech September 4 - Saturday - Day 13 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 7 - Individual Finals   10pm... we´ve only just got back to the hotel from the tournament.  Better than last night, anyway.   Should I tell you now, or later?   Oh, okay, now.   NEW ZEALAND MEDALLED!   Details to come later.  Aren´t I evil?   September 3 - Friday - Day 12   WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 6 - Individual Preliminaries   Okay, so technically it´s Saturday.  1am.  Don´t worry, I´m not competing tomorrow. It´s late, and talking about the Opening Ceremony would be boring.  I´ve got notes, I can fill it in later.  Essentially, the opening was long and boring... there were no demonstrations from the different continents as planned, which means NZ didn´t get to do the Haka.  Again.  So I´ll skip to this morning... Individual Competition.   There are four rings at Luna Park.  First event up was Male Patterns - one dan per ring.    Graham was one of the first 4th dans to compete, with the unfortunate first round draw of North Korea.  Korea is a dominant force at World Championships... frequently more so than they deserve, but it´s reasonable to expect their 4th Dan Patterns will be awesome...   Graham annihilated him.  In every possible way.  Korean was hunched, Graham was straight.  Korean wobbled, Graham was steady.  Oh, Korean just sucked, and Graham was awesome.  If you don´t believe me, watch the video.  Like Before and After pictures for learning Moon-Moo.  The Toi-Gye (designated) was closer, but Graham still had it in the bag.   Win to Korea.   It wasn´t just Graham... the Korean beat Brazil (who was still nowhere near as good as Graham, but better than the Korean!), and Argentina made it through a couple of rounds we weren´t sure about.    Korea vs Argentina was amusing.  The Argentinian was better than the Korean (*everyone* was better than the Korean!), but when the judges handed in their score sheets, the jury called "time out" and went to talk to more senior officials.  Maybe he´d forgotten the policy... is it Korea, then Home Country, then whoever deserves to win?  Or Home Country, then Korea?   Evidently Korea´s more important... he won.  Through to the final versus USA.   Graham was the equal at least of the best in that division.  He should be in that final.  Politics suck sometimes.   My first round was against Wales.  We both did Yoo-Sin for optional, and designated was Joong-Gun.  I like Joong-Gun - it was Cilla´s pattern at the Nationals, so I´d done extra special amounts of work on it.  It felt good, and it was enough to win the first round.   Second round was against Finland.  Designated was Kwang-Gae.  Icky.  It didn´t feel like my absolute best performance, so I wasn´t too surprised when Finland was declared the winner.  All the kiwis, however, tell me I was much better than he was!  I haven´t seen the video yet, so I can´t comment.  But I watched the semi final for my half of the draw, and I´m sure I was as good as either of them :(   Justin was the victim of a paperwork mix-up.  Japan was entered twice on the draw accidentally, so where Justin thought he had to compete against Japan early on, he actually had an extra Bye.  He ended up warming up, then having to try and stay warm for three and a half hours, not knowing exactly when he was scheduled.    He eventually took on Czech Republic, performing Kwang-Gae against the Czech´s Ge-Baek.  He feels now it was a poor choice on the mats... it´s hard to slide slow motion movements gracefully on the jigsaw mats, and Kwang-Gae can´t show the same power as Ge-Baek does.  Designated pattern Choong-Moo was far better... Justin was even or perhaps slightly better than the Czech there.  But it wasn´t enough to make up for the Optional.  He did a great job, but lost.  A fair result.   Laura - sporting "Baby Spice" pigtails - was our sole sparrer of the morning.  We didn´t tell her, but her German opponent was the current Lightweight World Champ.  (We found this out when Nicola Mitchell, while having a cigarette with the German coach, managed to divert the conversation to his lightweight sparrer... along with the Title revelation, he also let slip that the girl had a sore stomach at the moment... oops!)  Laura launched out on Sijak with a solid turning kick to the German´s stomach, and didn´t back down.  She was outclassed by someone who´d been a world-class competitor for as long as Laura´s been training... but it was far from a walk in the park for the German!  Laura gave as good as she got, landing a couple of wake-up call punches to the head, and *grinning* in a most disconcerting fashion!   She lost the fight, but she and the rest of the kiwis were ecstatic over how well she´d done - against a world champion!   The German lost later on to the Korean, who is through to the final.   The other finalist is Julia Cross, Scotland´s only competitor at the Champs.  She´s a favourite of the kiwi team... very fast, very good.  Another of Willy van de Mortel´s proteges at present.   In her first round vs Chile, she landed a vicious reverse turning kick to the head, dropping her opponent and earning a yellow card... then doing it again with a back kick.  Perfect timing, and the Chilean walked right into it.  When she got up again, the ref decided she couldn´t continue, and awarded the match to Julia.   Second round against Peru, I remember one perfect punch that slipped straight through the poor girl´s guard and smashed her to the mat.  Julia won that round easily too.   I missed her fight against Brazil, but the semi final vs Argentina was very close.  Somehow she managed to overcome the home team advantage, winning the round to make the final.  Will she repeat her silver from St Petersburg, or take home the gold?  We´ll find out tomorrow...   Men´s sparring started shortly after.  The Lightweight match Colombia vs Canada was scary to watch... Canada landed a nasty dodging back kick to the Colombian´s groin early on.  There was also a gorgeous tornado kick that caught the side of the Colombian´s head full on... ow!   The end result was odd.  The match was awarded to Canada.  Then a minute later they were called back in, and the ref took their hands... just before he lifted Colombia´s, the Canadian stalked out of the ring.  He just made the mistake of doing this while General Choi was in the stadium... and Master Leong, close by, took great offence at this.   His face went a pretty red while he yelled at the Canadian guy... it was nifty to watch.  Don´t upset this man, people!   Master Leong also got involved after one of the Tajikistan Lightweight´s early fights.  The fighter was yelling a lot with his attacks, and the jury ordered the ref to give him warnings for it.  He had trouble breaking the habit, and clocked up four for that alone.  The ref seemed unhappy about it, but he had his instructions.   After the fight, Master Leong was seen telling off the ref, pointing out that there is nothing wrong with kihaps during sparring.  In the next fight Tajikistan had, with the same ref and the same jury, he yelled as much as he wanted, and the jury said nothing...   Aaron was scheduled to fight Korea-in-Japan.  The draw was soemwhat confused - they were calling the fights in a different order to what was written down, somehow, so like Justin, Aaron was warmed up far longer than he needed to be.  But eventually his turn came.   We all doffed shirts and performed a haka as he waited to be called into the ring... Aaron stared down his opponent across the ring, occasionally joining in the movements of the haka.  Impressive to watch.   In the ring, he was even more impressive... the KFJ just couldn´t catch him, and he landed several good points himself.  It looked like a cinch.   Win to KFJ.  We were getting a bit sick of this.   Meanwhile, patterns were still going on... as a general rule, the 3rd dan men and the 4th dan women seemed fairly poor quality.  Noemi Prone from Argentina put in a performance that disappointed those of us who´d heard so much about her.  Fortunately, the 3rd dan women were generally excellent... good to see *some* world-class patterns at a world champs!   Tamaiti and Nikki were left to compete.  Tam was first, taking on Sweden.   He did well... we performed another haka to help psych him up, and it must have done the trick... it wasn´t a high scoring fight, both doing a lot of dodging and parrying, but Tam landed a couple of good flying punches that clinched it.    Win to New Zealand.  Hooray!   It was another hour or so before either of them were up after that... and when it finally happened, it was both of them at the same time in separate rings!   What I saw of Nikki´s patterns vs Poland was very good - optional Ge-Baek, designated Dan-Gun.  I thought she looked better than the Pole... people who were watching more closely confirmed it.  We´re not sure how she lost that round :(  We seem to be getting more than our share of odd results :(   Tamaiti had the USA fighter in his second round.  USA was a lot taller, and Tam didn´t manage to get inside that reach to score.  Unfortunate, but this loss seemed a fair one.   A couple of other bouts of note - Paul Germain from Canada drew Korea in the first round... and was eliminated!  A first round loss for someone with Germain´s record is scary... the bout was even scarier.  Two very fast, very powerful, *very* good fighters.   Stephen Tapilatu is through to the finals also, beating Argentina convincingly on the way.    That´s all I have for now.  We´re still in 6 events... still have shots at 6 medals.  Let´s see how it goes tomorrow! RESULTS Individuals   Male Lightweight Sparring Aaron McIlwee 1st Round : Loss vs Korea-in-Japan Male Middleweight Sparring Tamaiti Brunning 1st Round : Win vs Sweden 2nd Round : Loss vs USA Female 1st Dan Patterns Nikki Mantjika 1st Round : Loss vs Poland Tomorrow Male Heavyweight Sparring Hong Looi Male Hyperweight Sparring Ian Walton Male Power Breaking Graham Patterson Female Power Breaking Nikki Mantjika Male Special Technique Aaron Lange Sunday Male Team Event : Special Technique 6 medal chances left!     UPDATE - Saturday 4 September 8.00 am NZ time Individuals   Male 4th Dan Patterns Graham Patterson 1st Round : Loss vs North Korea   Male 3rd Dan Patterns Matthew Breen 1st Round : Win vs Wales 2nd Round : Loss vs Finland   Male 1st Dan Patterns Justin Jessett 1st Round : Loss vs Czech   Female Lightweight Sparring Laura Mitchell 1st Round : Loss vs Germany   Competing this afternoon :   Nikki Mantjika, Female 1st Dan Patterns Aaron McIlwee, Male Lightweight Sparring Tamaiti Brunning, Male Middleweight Sparring   Full stories tonight. Hey all (2/9)   Thankfully Matt has been keeping you all up to date with faxes, having little luck finding a simple Internet link.   We have been busy for the last few days, competing & cheering.   The bus ride to Rosario was fairly uneventful, aside from most of us getting drenched just before getting on the bus. Once aboard, it took only a short while for the whole team to fall asleep. That basically was the trip.   Driving through the early stages of Rosario created a bit of apprehension amongst some, with block upon block of corrugated iron slum areas. Fortunately the middle of town was better.   We stayed at Hotel Savoy ("Saveloy") which was a fantastic old building, grand hall ways, brass chatels, antique furniture in each room, high ceilings, and polished floors. A little run down, but a terrífic place.   We turned up at the Rosario Provincialle Stadium on Tuesday morning (travelling bus taxi - somehow the bus ticket selling place had run out tickets - for a bus that comes every three minutes - Toyota..). We were directed to a room the size of a basketball court, where we lined up beside the other 16 or so countries and waited for the formal march on-march off thing. Grandmaster Rhee Ki Ha and Master Choi Jung Hwa were the dignitaries in Rosario.   For the better part of the competition the Kiwi´s cheered for the underdogs - the teams with little or no support to speak of, while the Argentinian public turned out to cheer for their own team (who certainly looked strong).   I would tell you some of the results of the competition, but my attention to detail is not the same as Matt´s (at least, I can´t fit my handwriting onto small cards like him), so I´ll leave him to fill you in.   We got knocked out of the Team Pattern by Puerto Rico, who were strong; knocked out of the sparring by Brazil, who have made it into the final; Aaron Lange quailified us for the Team Specialty Technique final on Sunday with a 2.6m Flying High Kick (made to look easy!!); We didn´t make the power qualifier (I missed the six board side kick, along with every other team..)   The Lads all sparred well, Ry first - a close fight that left Ry with a bruised nose; me second - an even fight that was apparently won in the last 20 seconds or so (I can´t really remember the fight at all though (funny how that happens) - I´ll have to check the video); Justin sparred third, again another close fight that saw a delay in the result, two judges being called to the Jury to check their scores. Not a bad effort.   There was a bit of confusion with the power test - the initial ruling was that a team had to only break one of the six boards to qualify. The rules then changed - all six had to be broken. Nobody broke all six. Rules changed again - back to one board to qualify. In the end, only 2 or 3 teams qualified. Gonna make for a quick day on Sunday at the finals.   Weigh in this morning for the individual sparrers, all ok except Laura, who was entered in the Lightwieght division due to her replacement of Jeanette. Laura, thinking she was a middleweight, got a bit of a shock when she found she was 500g over the lightweight division cut off she was entered in. Unfortunately she cannot be put up a division for some reason, so she has been sweating the extra weight off all morning. Cross your fingers.   Individuals start tomorrow. All but Hong and Ian do their stuff tomorrow - those two have a busy day on Saturday.   Opening Ceremony tonight, we should be doing the Haka there, set the crowd off...   Catcha´s tomorrow. Gray September 2 - Thursday - Day 12 - 1pm   WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 4 - Weigh in and Opening Ceremony, Buenos Aires   The individual sparrers have headed off to weigh in... no breakfast for them!  The rest of the team are recovering from the bus trip, writing updates, shopping, or keeping people waiting while they watch soccer.    ("NEVER KEEP A WOMAN WAITING WHEN SHE WANTS TO GO SHOPPING!"   - anonymous and irritated team supporter. )   We´re meeting at 2pm to find out what´s happening tonight... at 6ish there´s a "Fiesta", but it only lasts an hour, so it can´t be much of a party... followed by the Opening Ceremony.  If they liked the Haka in Rosario, imagine what a bigger crowd will think when we do the longer one, with six or seven more people, with our shirts off!   That´s it for now... Individual Competition begins tomorrow!  Wish us luck...   September 1 - Wednesday - Day 11   WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 3 - Team Preliminaries   We decided rather than staying the extra night in Rosario, we would indeed go back tonight... several of the kiwis are finding the dust around here irritates throats and sinuses, and want to get away from it.  Fair enough... it means we don´t need to rush in the morning, even if we will be travelling until about 1am.   Every morning in this city, just about every shop throws a bucket of water onto the pavement outside their door, then sweeps the watwer into the street.  That´s how much dust there is...   Our taxi ride to the venue this morning was my scariest yet (although it doesn´t compare with the crash the others had last week...) - our cabbie was actually *reading the paper* on his way through busy intersections and so forth.  It turned out he was trying to find an article on the competition yesterday and the Argentinian team for us.  Yikes!   When we arrived, we found there had been some changes to the program.  Since there had only been one qualifying country for Women´s Special Technique in Rosario (we don´t know about Mar del Plata), those who missed yesterday got a second shot this morning.    Argentina - we´d seen her practising when we arrived - broke the board, and started jumping and waving her arms joyfully.  Rua - one of the judges - turned to the jury and gave a "No Break" signal - in her elation, she´d forgotten to perform a guarding block to complete the technique!   The Argentinian coach immediately put in a protest... arguing with the jury... paying the required 200 peso protest bond... and one of the Argentina camera crews brought down their video camera to show the appropriate piece of footage.    The discussion after that seems to have been along the lines of whether "landing with your hands kinda up" qualifies as a guarding block.  We saw Rua demonstrating a strong, clear block - evidently saying that he felt the rules required a definite taebi makgi - and the discussion went a while longer.   Eventually, Argentina qualified, and the 200 peso bond was returned.  (If you lose your protest, you lose your money.)   One other country... Uzbekistan or Brazil, I think... touched the board, but no others qualified.  Apparently two from Rosario is enough, since no more attempts were made.   Female Team Patterns - we only saw one match, so maybe the other teams didn´t enter.  Uzbekistan and England obviously couldn´t, since they don´t have five people, but we don´t know about Brazil or Germany.   Czech Republic were *sharp*.  They marched on, traditional communist-country fashion, stompstompstomp ("Oh, no, more stormtrooo-pahs," Jamaica lamented beside us...), in perfect time... did a strong, very sharp pattern, stomped off.  Argentina had a job ahead of them.   And they rose to the challenge... they weren´t as sharp, but they were *interesting*... a little like our plan in St Petersburg, they played around with different directions to get effects with the shape of the team... but still strong, and still in perfect synch.   Hard to pick.   On the designated pattern - Won Hyo - I would have said Czechs had an edge.  But a slight one.  (Argentina marched on and off diagonally - very cool!)  And a slight edge isn´t often enough to beat the home team advantage.   Wasn´t this time, either - Argentina won.  Czech girls were later seen in tears... it´s an understandable feeling.   Men´s Team Sparring!   Dad would be horrified - they had three rings, but so far they hadn´t used more than two... and that consecutively!  (One match would finish in Ring 3, then the next would start in Ring 2!)  There was a lot of sparring to get through, so we could have been there a long time.  We were the first fight on the second draw... so we assumed they´d run two rnigs and we´d be up straight away.  We got all warmed up and worked up... Alan Gillon borrowed Lawrence´s tag so he could come on floor with us (the resemblance is remarkable... if you turn the tag backwards... :) )... we were ready as we´d ever be.   After the first match in one ring, they broke for lunch.  At 11:40 am.  Until 3:30 pm.  Go figure.   My sparring bag was just a little small, so I bought a new one with the Champs logo.  Nearly got a great deal - must have been the same girl who sold Andrew his T-shirts...  I gave her $50 for an $18 dollar bag, and she counted out a two, three tens, and a fifty in the change.  But the other girl caught the mistake before she handed it too me.  Ah well :)   We went to McDonalds for lunch, then headed back to the venue to wait for a couple of hours (that´s where the last couple of faxed updates were written...)  Andrew was delighted when a team of three Kiwis and two Jamaicans thrashed five Argentinian kids ("They weren´t kids!  They were 18, 19!") 7-2 at soccer.  Highlight of his trip so far :)   After lunch, we warmed up again.  Andrew Salton gave us a bit of a pep talk - "Chris - be aggresive!  Matt - be aggressive!  Justin - be aggressive!  Ry... uh, just be yourself!"   We went into the stadium and got ready to take on Brazil.  Up in the stands, our supporters and teammates performed a haka - some of the crowd tried to drown them out with cheers for Brazil, but it just wasn´t gonna happen :)  And the rest of the crowd went absolutely nuts when they finished!  (Foreigners *love* a good haka, folks!)   Ry was first up, against a Brazilian about the same build... in the first flurry, the Brazilian countered Ry´s kick with a very fast reverse turning kick to the head... but Andrew had told Ry it would happen, and his hands were there to parry it.  The Brazilian sidestepped to catch his balance, and caught Ry in the face with a hard reverse knifehand... carrying it through to a grab to prevent a counterattack.  (It seems to be a common trick this year - score a point, then step out of the ring or grab hold to get the ref to stop the fight.  You get a warning, but your opponent can´t score back...!)   Ry´s nose was bleeding, so there was a brief timeout to get that stopped.  Ry demonstrated admirable control - didn´t lose his temper, fought the way he´d been training - but didn´t manage to make back the slight lead the Brazilian had opened in two minutes.   1-0 Brazil.   Graham was next, against a taller opponent.  Beautiful fight - for those of you who´ve never seen Graham spar, it´s lovely to watch.  He scored with several gorgeous double- and triple-kick combinations, keeping pace with someone with a longer reach.  In the last twenty seconds, however, the Brazilian landed a flying punch - side kick combination that went unanswered... we think that must have been decisive.   2-0 Brazil. Justin "Ju-Ju" Jessett was our third fighter.  The Brazilian dominated the centre of the ring, knowing his distance very well, always managing to be a few inches away from Justin´s attacks.  But Justin was the master of the fighting retreat in this bout, scoring with a pair of jumping back kicks.  (One was good.  The other was *spectacular*!  Go Ju-Ju!)  Justin recieved four warnings - one for falling over David Sutrisna!  This totals one minus point... the count-up of points took a long time, with two judges being called in to confer.  It must have been close!  But that minus point must have made the difference... the decision went the other way.   3-0 Brazil.  Game over.  [sighs]  Sorry, New Zealand... we tried...   The update will continue soon - as soon as more computer access becomes available!  Lots of great moments from the rest of the Team Sparring competition to come!   September 1 - Tuesday - Part 2   As each country was eliminated from Team Sparring, they had to perform their qualifying break - 6 board side kick - for Team Power Breaking.   Of all the countries to attempt so far, only Puerto Rico had broken anything - and they only broke one board.  But we were confident that Graham´s a legend.   But he bounced!  And now we know why nobody was breaking - they had one of those free-standing steel monstrosity board holders, and it lifted off the ground when he hit the boards.  We watched other countries break, and it did the same thing... haven´t the organisers figured out that walls don´t move?   Slovenia fought the Czech Republic in one of their early rounds.  The Czechs are a strong team, and the Slovenians were giving away a lot of height (they´re all short, but strong looking...), so we were interested to see whether Willy van de Mortel´s coaching was worth what he gets paid...   I tell you, he´s certainly taught his boys to punch!  I would have called the Slovenians the underdogs, but their timing for darting in and landing a few solid punches before getting back again was impeccable!  The Czechs went down... not bad for a country I´d never even heard of before...   There was an interesting fight in the Uzbekistan v Uruguay match.  One of the Uruguayans was huge... well over six feet.  He was fighting a little Uzbekistani... a real David-Goliath matchup.  (There are no weight divisions in Team Sparring... you can enter six hyperweights or six microweights if you want...)  They spent a long time bouncing just out of each other´s reach... Goliath daring David to take on his front leg side kick, and David trying to fake a rush that would draw a response from Goliath so he could get in close.  (They each got two warnings from the ref for not sparring...)  Finally, David made his move... and the expected side kick whistled out for his head.  David responded with a vicious reverse turning kick... his head dropping down almost to his ankle to avoid the side kick, and the reverse turning kick landing just above Goliath´s belt.  Beautiful... but his hand went down as he did it and he got a "falling" warning, so I don´t know if it scored.   Doesn´t matter.  It was cool anyway.   Regretfully, it´s very, very hard to make up that sort of reach disadvantage, and Uruguay won.   Tamaiti noticed that the Jamaican fourth dan has the same competitor number Tam wore in St Petersburg - 111!  How´s that for a bad omen, huh?  :)  (If I get knocked down, call the number on my butt...)   They were finally running two simulataneous rings, so our attention was a little split.  We knew when the English took the field against Germany, though... Argentina do *not* like England.  The home crowd booed a lot as they entered the arena.   Meanwhile, Argentina were taking on the KFJ.  (How do I explain Korea-in- Japan?  Even I don´t understand it.  Essentially, North Korea sends a team, Japan sends a team, and the KFJ - Koreans who live in Japan - sends a team.  Dunno.)   The North Koreans tend to be a bit reclusive, a bit arrogant.  Okay, a lot.  Sure, they´re very good... but nobody really likes them much.  KFJ, on the other hand, really seem more Japanese than Korean.  They´re awesome - they do patterns like Kosuke, they´re *very* fast in the ring, they´re cheerful and approachable, and they´re mostly pretty small.  (Hwoarang is tall, kinda, but very light... tall for a Japanese, anyway.)   The KFJ ringside was right under Jamaica and New Zealand... and the home crowd were obviously in favour of Argentina.  So the Kiwis´n´Jamaicans decided to look after the Koreans´in´Japan.  They obviously appreciated the applause... it´s a lot of pressure when thousands of people are cheering for your opponents...   We´ve noticed there´s a certain official who always seems to be on the jury panel whenever Argentina is competing... he was there when Tajikistan had two suspect draws in Team Patterns, he was there for the no-guarding-block incident in Women´s Special Technique, and he was on the panel now for the KFJ match. Coincidence?  Or something more sinister?  We´ll keep an eye out and watch if the pattern continues...   First round.  KFJ scored an early clear point, then got a warning for dancing around wavnig his hands.  Can´t do that :)  But sometimes it´s worth the warning... ;)  We thought he had the edge, but the decision went to Argentina. (A slight edge isn´t usually enough to beat a home team... has to be decisive...)  The Argentinian displayed some style, though... when his hand went up, instead of the boring old jump-for-joy, he executed a lovely backward somersault.  Home crowd loved it.  (Gotta hand it to the Argentinians - they´re definitely putting on a good show for the cameras.  They always look good when they march out, and warm up in very fancy fashion...  Oh, and they´ve got blue hair, like the Auckland North team :) )   A short stocky KFJ fourth dan took on a tall Argentinian next.  Highlight of the match was when KFJ picked him up in a bear hug... but he didn´t really make up the reach disadvantage during the match, and knew it - he wasn´t surprised when the result went to Argentina.   Remember "Ogre" from "Revenge of the Nerds"?  Ray Jackson from "Bloodsport"?  Add six inches, and you´ve got the biggest member of the Argentinian team.  The guy´s a monster.   This titanic leviathan of humanity was matched up against... Hwoarang! Fight!   The man is lovely to watch... there was one perfect jumping back kick in there that showed you why he was the person chosen to represent TKD on Tekken 3.  But speed and grace wasn´t enough against brute power this time around.   Ogre Wins.   A couple of the girls got great photos of the KFJ team standing around their flag, looking up at the Kiwis... Sherylene has a couple of their signatures on the back of her shirt (including Hwoarang, of course :) ).   Looking across to the England-Germany match - it´s still going!  They were up to the sixth round, having ended in a tie after five.  All of a sudden, the German pulled out the Flying Back Kick from Hell.  Caught the Englishman on the jaw as he was moving in.  He hit the deck.    Wow.  I don´t think anyone got it on video :(  It was nasty.   First aid came in, and woke him up... soon the Englishman was ready to continue, a pad on his chin making him look like Hannibal Lector.  The German was chasing after that jaw again... you could tell all his punches were aimed to hit that spot!  Two minutes ended, and the match went to Germany.   Side note - Rua Kaiou seems to be an important guy at this tournament.  He´s frequently spotted in senior officiating positions.   Croatia (it´s so confusing!  In an Argentinian accent, Croatia is "Crousshya", and Russia is "Rousshya"... we can never tell who they´re calling!) took on Brazil next, having defeated Jamaica in the prelims.  They had a couple of wins or draws, taking it to round 5, but Brazil won the overall match.  Go, Brazil... show the world it´s not just anyone who takes down the Kiwis...   Germany v Argentina.  Once again, the Germans were under the noses of NZ and Jamaica.  It took them a while to realise anyone was actually cheering for them - with that crowd, it must have seemed the whole world was against them - but they definitely appreciated the support, occasionally turning round and smilling, or shaking their fists above their heads, or waving their hands to drum up a little more applause from us :)   Round one - a win to Germany!  They were happy, we were happy... Argentina didn´t like it.   Round two - the German fourth dan took on the Titanic Leviathan.  First five seconds, the Ogre landed a turning kick to the German´s head.  He went down like a brick.  Graham has it on video.  Yow.   Home crowd went nuts.  But he got up again (shortly), and was ready to continue.   We couldn´t believe it - he got a falling warning!  Where´s the yellow card for Argentina, ref?  (A couple of people think they recognise the ref as a famous Argentinian TKDin - but I don´t remember the name.  Argentina reffing Argentina?  Is that right?)   We felt the German performed magnificently, and were upset when he lost... we had it going the other way...   Round three.  German beanpole vs Argentinian stick.  Tall, lanky guys.  A good bout... and most of us had it fairly clearly going in the German´s favour.  Graham taped it, we can watch it again.   A win to Argentina.  Huh?  That´s 2-1 to the Argies.  One more and it´s over. Argentina put in next - their fourth dan.  The guy who beat Paul Jermaine in Malaysia.  If that name doesn´t mean anything to you, Paul will have to put up an article on the greatest Taekwon-do athletes in the history of the Champs, ´cos Paul Jermaine is at the top of the list... (how ´bout it, Paul?  They had a section on that in the Champs book that got sent out...)   One of the Germans obviously wanted to take him on.  The coach didn´t want to put him in.  (Some of the kiwis remember seeing him lose a round earlier in the day when he lost his cool and went a bit nuts...)  He begged the coach for about five minutes.  And eventually, he got his chance.   It was lovely.  The Argentinian was good, but the German wanted it more, or something... even when he lost a point for the most tender "excessive contact" we´ve seen all day, he stayed in control, and took his points where he saw them.    Lawrence has this bit on video, we think - at one point, the ref called break, leaping in between the two fighters, facing the Argentinian.  The Argie´s hand came up, *behind* the ref, clocking the German on the jaw, hard.  His face registered stunned surprise for a moment... then his eyes rolled back and he keeled over, hitting the mat with a thump.  And the ref saw nothing!  But with a quick conferral with the judge, he deducted the point.  (A couple of people think it was a bit of Hollywood on the German´s part... I´ll have to watch the video again to decide...)    In the end, the judges couldn´t argue with a masterful display of sparring - a win to Germany!   The Germans were ecstatic - a lot of hugging and jumping going on. 2-2.  Final Round.   The victorious German was spotted at the edge of the ring, hands clasped, eyes closed, praying... "Just one more... please, just one more..."   It didn´t happen.  The Argentinian was taller, and faster, and a little better.  Win to Argentina.  Match to Argentina.   The Germans were upset, but we made sure we let them know that *we* knew who´d really won that match.  We got photos of the Team again, letting them know NZ and Jamaica supported them...   Brazil beat Tajikistan - my favourite team :( - in the fifth round.  Well done to a young, spirited team on getting so far... bad luck on getting eliminated. But at least the Brazilians are through to the medals - we can say it was one of the best teams that eliminated New Zealand!   Final match of the day.  Final event in Rosario.  Argentina v Slovenia.   Argentina is a tall team, with the home advantage and a long Taekwon-do history.  Slovenia is a relative unknown, at least to us, with a major reach disadvantage and no home crowd.  And Willy van de Mortel.   And after the Argentina-Germany fight, I think every other team was in support of the Slovenians.  I counted New Zealand, Jamaica, Brazil, England, Czech, and Tajikistan at least, cheering for them.  And of course, the Germans, who had come up to join New Zealand to watch this match.    Round one.  Argentina put in the Ogre.  I didn´t see this fight, but talking to Graham and a couple of others, the Slovenian had it in the bag.   Win to Argentina.   Round two.  Argentina´s back-flip boy versus one of the Slovenians.  (They all look almost interchangeable anyway :) )  Slovenia *took him apart*.  He made it look like he could have beaten the Argentinian with one hand tied.  Scoring in my head I had a score of 14 - 2 even before the end.   If this result had gone to Argentina, I don´t know what would have happend... but Slovenia won.   Round three.  Argentina´s fighter was the won who had won he crucial last round against Germany.  And Willy´s boys did it again - stayed cool, stayed out of range of Argentina´s legs, and zipped in to pummel him with solid fists at every opportunity.  Argentina lost his cool a little, and that was certainly the wrong thing to do.   Win to Slovenia.  2 - 1.  Keep going!   Last round - the Argentinian beanpole.  The Slovenian almost seemed to only be using one technique - dodge to the side and throw a hook - with the occasional kick to follow through a good punch.  This match was closer - didn´t look to me as decisive as the last two.  Would it be enough to overcome the home advantage?   Win to Slovenia.  Match to Slovenia.  The crowd went very quiet... the other teams went berserk!  Willy van de Mortel and the final fighter got picked up and carried around on shoulders.  Happy boys.   Argentina, meanwhile, just looked... devastated.  Half of them were walking around the edge of the ring with their faces in their hands... the others were lying on the ground staring at the ceiling...   And then, as if to add insult... "Argentina must perform... Power Break..." Naturally, it was the Titanic Leviathan who lined up on the boards.  (It can´t be easy to concentrate with all those people yelling at you...)  And he bounced!   Ry accidentally yelled out "YES!", and then tried quickly to hide in the crowd...   We had some native standing next to us yelling something in spanish - it was probably something like "You suck!  You´re a disgrace to your country!"  The poor Argentinians didn´t really look like they were going to recover quickly... The German star who´d beaten the fourth dan arrived during the last couple of rounds, to many handshakes and hugs from the Kiwis.  He got a photo with all the girls from our delegation, and Sherylene got him to sign the back of her shirt.   He wanted to sign the front, but Sherylene was firm.  Uh, that is, Sherylene said no.   Rosario competition was finished.  There were some demonstration items from some local black belts... a truly awful Po-Eun, some kiddy vs a 4th dan self defence (a la Bus Stop), some boring breaks, and a quite nifty one... two people each holding a board, doing simultaneous flying side kicks to break the other board.  Demo Team, start practising that one.  Finally, a couple of guys in suits doing a self defence skit.  That was kinda cool.   We caught taxis back to the Savoy to meet our bus back to Buenos Aires.  Our four hour trip became five and a half when we got a flat tire an hour out of BA... we didn´t get in until about 2:30 am.   Ah, the Presidente!  Working toilets!  Email!  Yay! (The toilets in Rosario!  At the stadium, we only found one that flushed!  Even that one - the one the officials and masters were using - had a centimetre of water... or something... on the floor, and a stack of newspapers in place of a toilet roll.  Boy are we glad to be back...)   Bed time.  More later. August 31, Tuesday - our Day 10 World Champs Day 3 - Team event preliminaries Breakfast at the Savoy - two medalianas, a glass of orange juice, and coffee. A far cry from the Presidente... We were told that buses left from across the road, travelling out past the stadium 24 hours, every 3 minutes. "Perfect", we thought! However, when Carmen went to purchase tickets at the bus stop kiosk, they had run out! (at 8 in the morning?). We ended up catching taxis - not a lot more expensive, and quicker. FAR quicker - our taxi alone nearly crashed twice, and we heard similar stories from the other cars, what is it with taxis here !?   Rosario.. Stadium Provincial.   Wow. We're really here - the World Champs. Other teams were here too. And Laura's jaw dragging on the ground demonstrated HER approval of some of them :) While waiting for the opening parade at 9am, we observed the other teams. KTFJ were stretching - flexible! and practising patterns (their kicks are too high.) Brazil and Argentina were sitting on the floor duelling with clap rhythms back and forth. The Jamaicans had cool hair. For those of you who know Willy Van der Mortel - he's coaching Slovenia this year! Everyone's favourite mercenary dutchman :) He certainly gets around. The parade kicked off with a brass band, followed by teams in alphabetical order (except Argentina, who went last). Next the Argentinian anthem was played on traditional instruments - guitar, pan-pipes, recorder and drums - followed by speeches, and speeches... long ones, all in Spanish, except Choi Jung Hwa, who spoke in English, regularly interrupted by translators. After the opening, we went to warm up and practise our team pattern. Several teams did not enter patterns - we guess they just wanna spar! Chili was one of these, which upset Carmen (her husband is Chilean). In the preliminary round, New Zealand lost to Puerto Rico. We just didn't have "it" in the ring - our last rehearsal felt better than the performance, and Puerto Rico were strong and sharp. In their next round, they took Russia to a draw, losing the tie-breaker. (Ask me about their Gae-baek when we get back ! It was cool  :)  ) Uzbekistan vs Jamaica was interesting to watch. UZB is Eastern Bloc, very stiff, communist march, stomp stomp stomp ! While the Jams looked very cool and relaxed, slow march... NZ and Jamaica have set up in adjacent areas, and we're getting on great. Members of both teams, UZB and Jamaica, were wearing singlets under their doboks. Centre judge had a word with them, so they had to strip off... The ladies in the audience appreciated that, particularly Laura!   For the Tekken fans out there, the Captain of the KFJ team is the Hwarang model. More on him later (he's *very* good!) Tajikistan vs Argentina was a controversial one - tell you all about it in the next update. When we come back - lunchtime shennanigans, women's team sparring! Men's special technique! Do you dare miss the next installment?         Tuesday - Our day 10 - part 2   Team Patterns, Tajikistan vs Argentina. Tajikistan did Gae-baek, Argentina did Po-eun. Designated was Toi-gye. Argentina was a little stronger, but the Tajiks were sharper, better, more in synch - and one of the Argentinians made an error. Score sheets were collected and counted. Soon the jury called judges up to confer. More discussion. After several *minutes* - a draw! Second designated pattern - Chon-ji. Tajikistan looked cool. The result - a draw! Third designated pattern - Po-eun. (isn't that the Argentinian optional?) By now Jamaica and New Zealand were cheering loudly for the Tajiks. Argentina did their pattern - same as before - and then a senior official came down to talk with the jury. For a while. Then he went away, and the Tajiks did their Po-eun. It was great. Finally - they won! Well deserved.   Lunch at the venue opened traditionally for meals here - dry bread rolls with no butter. You'd think with all the cows here someone would have invented butter. Lunch was a cheese ravioli... edible enough. Hong mistook the trigger of a soda bottle for the spout, spraying tonic water all over Barbs. He'll live it down one day. Well.. maybe. At lunch, Laura wanted to get Hwarang's autograph, but was too scared... (She got over it eventually.) She was distracted though, when she discovered the Czech men all lounging around topless... dragged Sherylene over to look too... Andrew got a bargain at the souvenir shop.. the poor girl working there apparently flunked J2 maths, charging him $10 for 3 T-shirts and a sweat-shirt. One of the Tajik girls has taken a liking to the New Zealand "funny hats", begging (we think) to swap something for one after the tournament.   After lunch, a couple more team patterns. In a very odd decision, UZB beat Tajikistan. (after all they went through ! :(  ) KFJ blitzed Russia - we saw "Hwarang" do Hwarang!   An informal vote by the team has determined that we have the coolest tracksuit - (unanimous). Second place goes to Argentina's sunburst on blue and white, followed by Jamaica in black, with flashes of fluorescent yellow and thinks-it's-a-real-colour green (watch "Cool Runnings"). Honourable mention to KFJ, England and Germany.   In men's special technique, Aaron Lange demolished a board to qualify us for team finals. Only a few teams were eliminated. In women's, however, only the Czech girl qualified! Women's team sparring - England and Uzbekistan displayed either confidence or desperation, entering teams of 4 and 3 respectively... (England could only afford to lose one bout... UZB had to win three in a row ! ) Argentina, however, wiped them both out, hardly breaking a sweat in the process. Those girls are *fast* ! Czech made a stunning comeback against Germany, coming from 2:0 down to win 3:2.  This brought an end to the day's competition.   It's Nicola Mitchell's birthday - let's see some emails! Nikki Mantjika is having trouble ordering food - her attempt to order pasta with a meat sauce resulted in one plate of pasta, and a hunk of meat *in* sauce. Poor girl...   We hear we're on TV tonight at midnight. If anyone's awake to see it, we'll tell you how it looked...   Sparring tomorrow... Look out, Brazil, here we come... !   Update for Aug 30 - Monday - Our Day 9 World Championships Day 2 - Travel to satellite cities.   Bus was scheduled for 2.30, so we went out for lunch. It was very grey - looked like rain - so most of us had our jackets on. Not Loz though - "the weather can't hurt us" he pronounced, T-shirt clad. The thunderstorm was very impressive. After catching taxis back to the hotel, we (well, most of us) hung our jackets in the lobby to dry. They were mostly wearable again by the time the bus arrived. The bus trip took 4 or 5 hours. Once you get out of  the city, Argentina is very flat and very green. We're not sure *why* they have so much grass - we didn't see nearly enough animals to eat it all. The roads were mostly long and *straight*. A little like driving through Canterbury. Almost everyone slept at least some of the trip. A few of us who were awake saw a row of billboards all declaring "Barbara" in huge letters - when we turned to point them out to Ms Inglis, we found nearly the whole bus asleep! Midway through the trip we stopped at an "Esso" gas station. It had a*Huge* forecourt.. and one poor guy with the sysyphian task of sweeping the dust off it. Good luck! Tonee was bemused by the different flavours of Fanta - we saw orange, lemon and tonic water. The girls were distressed to discover the woman in the toilets, selling the only paper available at US$1 for a small folded section. Looking up, we saw the sun was an eerie red colour (Loz has it on video !) The end is nigh!  The trip was made slightly more expensive by the toll gates we had to pass through. To give you an idea - a 20 minute taxi ride within the city might cost 5 or 6 pesos. The 1 hour'ish trip to the airport, passing through several toll gates costs 50! There were about 5 tolls between Buenos Aires and Rosario, adding 30 pesos to the bill. Sidenote: the pineapple here tastes funny. Very bland. Maybe they harvest it less ripe? We reached Rosario sometime after 7pm. The roads here are bumpy! We passed some * very* ramshackle suburbs on our way in. We even saw a cart pulled by a burro! Dust, everywhere. We reached the hotel, and waited outside while Carmen (naturally) went inside to do a deal. (Naturally again, with all those kiwis around, the rugby ball appeared!) Carmen decided that $27US a night was not good enough, so she and Lawrence went to check out another hotel down the road. Very basic, but spacious. And Carmen talked them down to $18 a night! Consequently, we're spending Wednesday night here as well - saving $70NZ'ish each - and travelling back to BA early Thursday morning.  The Savoy hotel is about 4km from the stadium - maybe about $1.50 by taxi each. Rosario is * cheap*!!   A steak meal that might cost $10US in BA is $5US here. Some of the supporters have taken a liking to the 970ml "Brahma" beers - $4 in BA, $2.50 in the Rosario restaurants, and * $1 * in the mini-market across the road ! (That's a good deal, I'm told !) Has the music video "Zorba's dance" hit NZ yet? We saw it in the restaurant tonight, and it's brilliant! If  you haven't seen it, I won't spoil the surprise! Some of the taller guys are complaining about the Savoy's short beds. What do they expect for $18 :) We now have our patches to sew on with our competitor numbers. Competition begins tomorrow.   This is just a taste - we're keeping detailed notes and will let you know the full story when we get back to Buenos Aires.   There will be updates of our travel day, both days of competition, and anything else that happens between now and then.   For now, we'll just tell you that we all made it to Rosario in one piece, and are staying at a cheap hotel (Carmen did another deal :) ).   First day of Team Event competition has happened - New Zealand lost our Team Pattern against Puerto Rico, but we have qualified for the Special Technique Finals in a few days.  Tomorrow Graham has a six board side kick to qualify us for Team Power, and we have our Team Sparring against Brazil.   Sorry to make this so brief, but it's costing us money, it's late, and we're competing in the morning... we promise full details when we get back to Buenos Aires!   Talk to you later...   August 30 - Monday - Day 9 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS DAY 2 - TRAVEL TO SATELLITE CITIES   We´re off to Rosario!  It´s about lunchtime here... Carmen has chartered a bus to take us to Rosario, leaving from Buenos Aires about 2:30.  It´s a five hour trip or so...   Hotel Presidente is being wonderful - they´ve set us up with one of their sister hotels in Rosario at a 15-20% discount, and have let us