BUTF Cup 2015 Report
On the 9th of May Chesham Taekwondo club sent its largest team to date of 22 black belts and colour belts to the sports village in Hatfield to take part in the BUTF cup tournament. Proceedings kicked off with everyone lining up and then recent black belt promotions being presented with their certificates and new belts. These included, from Chesham, Luke Mitterhuber getting his 3rd Dan, the first in Chesham club’s history. Then came Dave Shakespeare joining the ranks of 2nd Dan and then joining the ranks of junior black belts, 15 year old Johnathon Jitman, all having graded in March.
The tournament then started with the colour belt patterns taking up the 6 rings set up in the hall. Chesham’s students had a brilliant day with all but 4 of them bringing home at least one trophy. Only 2 events, patterns and sparring, could be entered and 4 of Chesham’s students managed to win 2 golds each. The success story of the day for Chesham was the junior yellow belt division. It had 7 kids entered and dominated the large patterns and sparring divisions. 2 patterns medals were won, with a couple of near misses, and 6 sparring medals. Highlight of the day was Alfie Mills winning an unexpected gold in the pewee sparring division. He had been working on his turning kicks in the lesson before and it really paid off for him. Instructor Master Keith Whitley commented ‘to see these young kids represent their club and come away with a trophy and a massive smile is worth all the hard work. They all performed fantastically well as did all the seniors as well’.
Then after the colour belts it was the turn of the black belts with Chesham’s Max Whitley continuing his unbeaten run in the BUTF by winning the junior black belt patterns yet again. In what was quite a large division it was great to see Johnathon Jitman get a bronze in his first black belt tournament.
On to the sparring and one of the most exciting fights of the day, between Max, and the only person to have beaten him before, Joe Rigg, from Hillingdon, in the low (height) division. This time they met in the first round. Max had to beat him to stand a chance of getting a medal and this time, after extra time, he did just that. With loads of flying and spinning kicks from both, it was certainly entertaining and the crowd loved it. He quickly went on to get to the final where he won his second gold. Luke Mitterhuber in the middle weight senior black belt sparring, got back his title of champion after some serious full on sparring. Also to be mentioned are junior black tag Lewis Swallow, senior red tag Sheldon Childress and senior green belt Martin Ritter who all achieved two golds. Along with Max they stand a chance of winning overall champion depending on how they do at the British tournament in November.