Sports

Sport Taekwondo Takes Second At Ivy Northeast Season Opener

The MIT Sport Taekwondo Club hosted the first tournament of the Ivy Northeast Collegiate Taekwondo League season on Sunday, Oct. 14. The tournament was attended by colleges from throughout the northeast. MIT finished with 484 points, behind only Cornell University with 698. In third place was Harvard University with 148 points.

The tournament began with forms, or poomsae competition, with involves the execution of a pattern of specific moves unique to belt level.

In the red belt forms competition, MIT’s Christopher J. Han ’09 took first place in the men’s division, while Christine M. Lee ’09 finished third on the women’s side. Ning Wu G took first place in men’s blue belt forms.

MIT performed especially well in the green belt forms competition, with Wenxian Hong ’10 and Vijay Umapathy ’10 taking first and second place, respectively, for the men, and Stephanie R. Chiang ’08 and Elisabeth M. Markham ’09 also securing the top two spots in the women’s competition.

In the white and yellow belt division, new club member Rafael A. Raya ’11 took second place.

With the conclusion of the forms competition, the tournament progressed to sparring, starting with the A-Team (advanced) competition. Despite very strong competition at the A-Team level, both MIT’s Men’s A1 (Wu, Han, and Forrest W. Liau G) and Women’s A1 (Karolina A. Corin G, Miranda J. Ha G, and Corinna Hui ’09) finished in third place.

Following the A-Team matches was the C-Team (novice) division. In one of MIT’s most impressive showings, the Women’s C1 (Ranbel F. Sun ’10, Han Zhu ’09, and Chiang) and Women’s C2 (Jennifer T. Huang ’08, Stephanie E. Nix ’09, and Markham) swept first and second place.

D-Team (beginner) sparring came next, giving some of the club’s newest members the chance to experience competition for the first time. MIT’s Men’s D1 team (Matthew A. Pagan ’11, Raya, and Mitchell J. Kelley ’11) finished in second place. Tied in third place were MIT’s Men’s D2 (Elvine P.B. Pineda ’11, Xiaoxi “Josh” Wang ’11, and Frederick A. Baba ’10) and D3 (Matthew G. Escoto ‘11).

In the women’s D-Team division, MIT’s D1 team (Jing “Jenny” Cheng ’11, Shammi S. Quddus ’10, and Elizabeth M. George ’08) took first place.

The tournament ended with the fierce competition of B-Team (intermediate) sparring. MIT’s Men’s B1 (Wu, Han, and Liau) finished in third place, tied with MIT Men’s B2 (Arpun R. Nagaraja ’09, Jason J. Uh ’10, and Jamie B. Edwards ’08).

MIT’s women’s B-Teams also performed well, with MIT’s B1 (Ha, Hui, and Chiang) taking first place over a strong team from Cornell. MIT’s Women’s B3 (Sun, Nix, and Christine Chin ’09) finished in third place.

MIT will seek to take over the lead from Cornell at the second tournament of the season, which will take place on Sunday, Nov. 11.