BLUEWAVE Korean Martial Arts picked up more medals at this year’s British Taekwondo National Poomsae Championships than they had in all their previous visits put together.

This year’s tournament, held over two days at the K2 Centre in Crawley, attracted a record turnout of over 500 competitors from across Great Britain, testing their skills in the technical disciple of poomsae (patterns).

Each competitor performed two poomsae in front of a panel of national and inter-national referees.

Bluewave has really focused on poomsae in the past two years and in preparation for their trip to Crawley, the team had the opportunity to train in their own gym with Grandmaster Tong Wan Shin, Head Referee for Great Britain and a former World Champion.

This year’s team of nine competitors was the largest Bluewave had ever taken to either a poomsae or sparring national level event.

There were great performances right across the grades and ages, with the club winning five medals.

Gold medals went to Graham Jones (over-66 black belt), as well as Ellen Farthing, Ria Mistry and Caitlin Walker (under 10 yellow/green belt synchronised team).

There was a silver medal for Sian Reilly (under-17 black belt freestyle), while there were bronze medals for Mistry (under-10 yellow/green belt) and Lynne Firth (under-60 black belt).

Even though they missed out on medals, there were excellent performances from Coleen Reilly, Amy Stock and Olwen Barton.