Call it a Rocky Mountain high.
There were more peaks than valleys for a group of Prince George athletes from Horizon Tae Kwon-Do Total Fitness who traveled to Jasper for the Western Canadian ICTF (international Chang-hon Taekwon-Do Federation) championships.
More than 360 competitors took part in the Jasper tournament, which served as a qualifier for the ICTF Taekwon-Do World Cup, Oct. 15. Athletes competed for medals in patterns, sparring, board-breaking, and high-kick events.
Horizon club members Jean Luc Gagnon (first dan), Shandall Kissel (black stripe) and Josh Dumoulin (fourth dan) all competed well enough in Jasper to earn $500 in travel funds from the ICTF Canadian to help pay the cost of their trip to Toronto.
Gagnon captured gold in patterns, silver in sparring and won a silver medal in the high-kick event. Kissel won gold in sparring and silver in patterns, while Dumoulin earned gold in patterns and gold in parring.
"It was a fun event," said Dumoulin. "We had a good turnout and there were a few extra events like board-breaking and the high-kick competition. One of the guys got higher than eight feet with his high kick. Lots of the kids got up and tried it and had a lot of fun with it."
Other Horizon Tae Kwon-do results were as follows: Rylan Bowen-Colthurst: bronze in patterns Ameer Dhillon: gold sparring and bronze patterns; Matt Florell: bronze patterns; Olivia Brown: bronze sparring and gold patterns; Harmen Dhalliwal: bronze sparring; Allen Quitariano: gold patterns; Cara Jenkins: gold patterns and bronze sparring; Victor Liu: gold patterns and silver sparring; Kiana Gagnon: gold patterns and gold sparring; Dave Jenkins: silver in high kick; Sean McCallum: gold patterns and gold sparring; Laura Bennett: bronze patterns; Stephanie Kao: gold patterns; Michelle Barnes: bronze board breaking and silver sparring.
