International Taekwon‑Do Federation

Just few steps from the idea of attending UKTA e-competition to having e-Czech Open, despite of some technical issues all competing videos were not even successfully taken and uploaded to Cyber Arena. Organizing team and I were surprised of the worldwide interest and numbers of competitors which led us to postpone the beginning of the competition the same day as it should have been kicked off. Unfortunately, the judging was rescheduled to many weeks.

Anyway, let’s talk about the Czech e-Open. Having seen the immense motivation among my students as well as the interest of others, I was seriously thinking of having this kind of competition here in the Czech Republic. I would like to point out, despite of all my experience with competitions, this was new to me. I had to get in touch with mister Archipov who provided with the Cyber Arena as well and get the information package to make it happen. Having 200-450 competitors at 4 rings competing is totally different to hundreds matches at only one e-ring.

The over limit interest (400 competitors) of getting the chance to compete is great result. There were 400 competitors from 19 countries and 88 clubs and many of others could not attend the competition.

The judging schedule had to be moved from two judging (weekend) days to one evening and other two working days. Let me emphasize the judges training and competition itself took just 22,5 hours. All judges had to deal with the very different quality of footage as well as rear issues of the Cyber Arena. The system itself is very interestingly designed but comparing with the Czech competition system, I personally see some issues in judging of mainly kids categories which took too long and the providing team had a lot of work with It as well. The other issue I see is in the judging footage delay which is not in accordance with the real judging time which could lead us to think the judges talk to each other when judging.

Finally, let me thanks to all judges for being vigilant which helped us with finding out at least three other issues with letting incorrect person to continue in competition. Unfortunately, we had to reschedule broadcasting days as well.

Last week was all about broadcasting, cheering as well as discussing results. All competitors can be excited to receive the electronic participant certificate in few days.

Diplomas: https://online.taekwondo-itf.com/sites/default/files/pdf/Diplomas_cz.pdf

Organizing the e-open, it provided with interesting experience and knowledge for other potential online competition. On the other hand, I hope we will get back to our normal life with traditional kind of competitions.

At the end, let me thanks to mister Anton Archipov and his team for providing us with the Cyber Arena and service as well as all judges namely master Rostislav Kaňka, Zbyněk Mácha, Tomáš Kuba, Vladimír Švanda, Přemysl Šesták, Pavel Zavadil, Jakub Geyer, Martin Hvězda, David Povýšil, Eliška Máchová, Petr Smejkal a Martin Svoboda for their judging.

Master Ondřej Vrábel
e-Czech Open Director

Take a look at the record of the 1st competition day,

March 20, 2021 (black belts):

Take a look at the record of the 2nd competition day,

March 21, 2021 (color belts):