Page 23 - Minister Alex Schwengle

Brazil 11LOCAL
Taekwondo’s
team has
completed their
Camp Training in
Seongnam Korea

YESTERDAY around 5 o’clock in the afternoon the

Hard Fight Smart team from Brazil Taekwondo Foun-
dation completed their training camp at Pung Saeng
High School in Seongnam Korea.
The team is being guided by ex world champion Henk
Meijer who arranged everything to make the trip to
Korea possible for these kids.

The kids trained twice a day along with the Korean
kids which was extremely challenging for them since
the Koreans train 5 days a week instead of 3 and are
already used to this system.
Remarkable is that they also receive punishment train-
ing session when they don’t do something right or lose a
fight, and then the entire group receives a punishment
training session.

Aruba’s team is not used to training this much since
our team still hasn’t reached their level of professional
taekwondo yet, but hopefully this will be achieved in
the near future.
It’s the Brazil Taekwondo team’s first time in Korea
along with their coach Clifford Rasmijn and they look
back to a unique and exceptional experience where they
learned and saw a lot of new things. They learned a lot
about the Korean culture and tasted a lot of Korean food
but also learned lots of new Taekwondo techniques.

During their month spend in Korea they underwent a
lot of training and even won 3 medals which proves
that our team has got it in them but they also learned
that they have a long way to go and need to work hard
if they are to achieve a similar level as the Koreans.

5 athletes will be given another opportunity to shine
in front of the world at the 2015 World Children Tae-
kwondo Culture Festival in Maju, Korea this Sunday.
This is just another test to better evaluate these athletes.
Henk Meijer has a lot of things planned for the team
before they return to Aruba.

Afterwards Hakeem Lowe and Clifford Rasmijn will
stay in Korea to participate in the Cadet World Champi-
onship which will take place from August 23 to August
26, whereas the others will return to Aruba to prepare
for the 2015 Costa Rica Open.

ARUBA TRAVELLER - Saturday, August 8 2015