Three new world taekwondo champions in Wirral

Sep 29 2010 by Philip Kirkbride, Birkenhead News

WIRRAL has three new martial arts world champions.

Ellen Candeland, 15, from Morton, 10-year-old Jamie Orman from Pensby, and Mathew Pearce, 15, from West Kirby, claimed world titles at the World Taekwondo Championships.

More than 1,800 Taekwondo students from the UK, central Europe, Asia, America, Australia and South America attended the games which this year came to the UK and were hosted in Telford, Shropshire.

For Ellen it was a double triumph as the Weatherhead High School pupil won titles in both Taekwondo disciplines of set patterns and free sparring.

Jamie, a student at Irby Primary School, won his world title in the pattern discipline and Mathew claimed gold in the Junior Boys Black Belt division.

All train at the Wirral and Chester Taekwondo School run by fifth dan black belt Richard Saunders, from Bromborough.

Richard’s son, Nathan, aged nine, claimed a world bronze medal in the Boys Black Belt division. Nathan, one of the youngest Black Belts in the competition, is a pupil at Brookhurst Primary School.

There were also medals for West Kirby students Hannah Roberts, 14, who finished in third place in the girls’ Black Belt division for both sparring and pattern work and Joe Joinson who took bronze in the boys blue belt sparring contest at just eight years of age.

“It was a fabulous achievement for the club and the Wirral instructors who take the classes. We are delighted to have returned home with so many medals. ” said Richard.

In the senior categories 40-year-old Richard Jones, one of the club’s instructors who lives in Chester, took the world crown in the Black Belt Executive class and University of Chester student Richard Edwards, 23, took silver in the patterns and a bronze in sparring.