She lost her first match but returned with a fierceful appearance to clinch the gold medal in the second tournament.
This perfectly defines the roller-coaster journey of Ilongga jin Beatriz Karina Belicena who won the gold medal in the recently-concluded 1st 2020 Online World Poomsae Championships from May 11 to 15.
The native of Jaro, Iloilo City outformed Nepal’s Parbati Gurung in a scintillating finals match. She scored 0.02 higher than Gurung which made her bagged the first place.
“I have seen these athletes perform and they are very good. To be honest, I didn’t expect to top on this competition. I was hoping a second or third finish only. Parbati is also a 2019 SAG -South Asian gold medalist, a strong contender for my category. So I am very happy that I made it to the top,” Belicena said.
The Ilongga pride joined two online competition. She first competed in the 1st Online Daedo European Poomsae Championships on May 4-10, 2020.
This is the first online tournament that was launched internationaly hosted by Taekwondo Europe. Over 1,200 athletes joined from all over 75 countries.
“I played for my category, Senior 1 – Under 30 division and there’s 113 of us. I made it to the semifinal round, where from 113 down to 56 athletes. From semis, only top 8 would go to the finals. Unfortunately, I missed the cut-off for the finals,” shared Belicena.
To wrap up, she ranked 39th from the 113th athletes that competed.
“My experience for this tournament is unique. Since this is the first online tournament that I have joined, we have to pre record everything ahead of time. After they announced the compulsory forms, they gave us only 48 hours to submit our video recordings. And then we just had to wait for our scheduled game day. It’s amazing how the organizers pulled this one off. International referees were there scoring us live while they play our performance live in youtube. Even though I didn’t get to the top 8, I’m still happy with my score. My performance for the semifinals round is higher than my preliminary round,” she added.
To recall, Belicena, captured the gold medal in the 2020 US World Open and Para Taekwondo Championships at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland. He slayed other competing jins around the globe and snatched the top spot in the Individual Female Poomsae – senior division.
The Ilongga was also part of the coaching group during the Iloilo sports program which trained aspiring jins to develop their skills and forms.
“I will keep training, and keep moving forward. Hopefully everything will be back to normal soon. I’m looking forward to compete in the actual stadium again where all the athletes can showcase their talent live,” she disclosed.IMT
