10 Junior Finalist in Tae Kwon Do
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For the Rae’s Academy of Tae Kwon Do, it was an opportunity to compete against some of the top academies from the Southern states.
And after a strong performance during a regional qualifying competition in Miami, several students from the Boynton Beach academy will be moving on to face national competition.
The students competed in a regional tournament May 26 at Florida International University in Miami, and 10 of them will advance to July’s U.S. Junior Olympics competition in California.
During the Miami tournament, the students earned 20 medals, including 16 golds. Rae’s owner and instructor Ginger Schneider said many of the students are relatively new to tournament competition, but she was impressed by their efforts in Miami. The national qualifiers are Jackie Johnson, 13; Nelson Orengo, 20; Michael Colon, 17; Daniel Colon, 14; Brandon Nelson, 9; Emily Amron, 9; Nathan Marshell, 12; Hillary Hanna, 14; Paige Greenwood, 13 and Ian Dankberg, 15.
“Their performance was superb,” Schneider said. “(For) a lot of them, it’s the fifth tournament or sixth tournament, they’re not real seasoned. We had a whole group that are now in college so this is like the next generation of them, so it’s amazing. But it’s because their heart and soul is into it. It’s what they love and what they do.”
The group has been working under the instruction of Elysha Schneider, Ginger’s daughter, and James Burgos.
Burgos said he was pleased not only with the team’s performance, but also the manner in which the students conducted themselves.
“When you go to a tournament there’s a lot of kids that have a lot of attitude, they’re trained to have that intimidation factor,” Burgos said. “We don’t really do that. We want them to be confident, but not let it (pride) get in the way. It was good to see how seriously they took everything. I was really proud of them.”
The Junior Olympics competition will be July 10-15 in San Jose, Calif.
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