Final day of Tournament

I arrived at the Umm Ahasam Sports arena next day and found several of my old training buddies. I miss the tournament atmosphere.
Sadly our guys didn't win golds as usual today. Why? Make up your own mind. I managed to capture Habib's last fight on my P990i. But You tube said it was too long. I'll try to split it up. Anyone know a good video editor for PC?


So he wins at the end of Round 3, ref gives him a 1 point penalty to return his score to zero equalling his opponent (score 0 after three penalties). They go into sudden death and some how his opponent wins.

This is what Sabumnim Aldoy had to say:



They are champions so no big deal. They won medals before and will continue to win many more. All the best to them.

The tournament was chaotic and messy. True that allot of people will say that most TKD tournaments are like that but that's not an excuse. It could have easily been given to an event manager. And why not hire marshals? volunteers. They'd do it for free like the F1 does. Heck I would have done it.

Still it was a very good effort as a first and I can not wait for the 2nd tournament!

Bahrain's First Open Taekwondo Tournament

Bahrain is enjoying it's first Open Taekwondo Tournament (BMAA website). It opened the day before yesterday and had it's children & women competitions yesterday. Today is the men's competitions.
I used to do TKD with Aldoy's club. Obviously I stopped at a Redbelt, but I try to follow up on the club's news and participations.
The tournament lists 400 players which isn't a small feat. Countries I saw were Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Iran& Iraq.
The Irani team is always tough so it'll be intresting to see them. I heard rumors about the Iraqi team enrolling players older than what they declared them to be. I am not sure but I did see one player get disqualified, and they do look a bit taller then the rest of the kids.
Now Aldoy's TKD is famous for being tough competitors. They have a solid Women team, and the fact that they got most of the women medals isn't surprising really. The first day results can be found here in Arabic. I'm off to see the rest of the clashes today, if you have the time, drop by the Umm Alhasam sports dome just off Adliya.

Pictures, top to bottom:

1-Part of the women matches
2-Part of the kid matches
3-Sabumnim Aldoy taking to the ref. between rounds
4-The Doy Girls team
5-Salman Yousef, Doy's team Black belt

Back from Umra

I'm finally back from Umra. Didn't post earlier because I was mostly hooked on Zelda. Yes, I bought a nintendo Wii from Mecca and I'm loving it! But more on that later.
My Umra trip was easy and quick. Mecca was serene, quite and very clean. It was my brother's first time so we tagged along most of the time. One can never get enough of praying in the holy mosque.
I got some pictures for you from there. You can't really take pictures, else everyone will treat it like a tourist attraction rather than the holy place it is. Still I managed to get some, so enjoy!