MIT placed first overall out of around 20 schools in a virtual tournament on 11/1/20. Students competed all around the country – in their homes, at their taekwondo studios and of course on campus, both indoors and outdoors. It was a great experience that brought the team together, and participants said they still felt all of the same tournament hype even though it was virtual.
The team had 37 athletes (from yellow to black belts as well as freshman to grad students) compete. Matches were structured as teams of 3 with head-to-head matches between competitors of opposing schools. Each competitor performed their belt appropriate form to a panel of 5 judges and were scored on accuracy and performance. The player with the higher score won the match for their team and winning 2 out of 3 matches in a round advanced the team to the next round.
MIT had teams win the black belt and yellow to green belt divisions and got a silver in the yellow to green and 2 bronzes in blue to red belt divisions.
View additional pictures on the team’s Facebook page.
The final results and contestants are here:
Top 5 schools:
1) MIT
2) Cornell
3) West Point
4) Princeton
5) Rutgers
Advanced Division:
PA1: Kevin Jiang, Karyn Real, Elizabeth Zou– GOLD – 128 pts
PA2: Sam Kim, Joy Zeng, Peter Tran – RND16
PA3: Akila Saravanan, Claire Kim – RND32
PA4: Renee Silva, Dana Hua – RND16
Intermediate Division:
PB1: Laney Flanagan, Moctar Fall, Alexandra Vernich – BRONZE – 24 pts
PB2: Wanlin Li, Jiaxing Liu, Suzie Byun – BRONZE – 24 pts
PB3: Shubhanga Ballal, Michelle (Junyi) He, Silvia Knappe – RND16
PB4: Stan (Tin) Nguyen, Carolyn Mei – QUARTERS – 12 pts
PB5: Liam Herndon, Jeffery Li – RND16
Beginner Division:
PC1: Tenzin Jampa, Angela Gao, Tina Chen – GOLD! – 64 pts
PC2: Alessandre Santos, Dan Dangond, Grace Huang – QUARTERS – 8 pts
PC3: Karina Lara, Hanjie Liu, Tiffany Louie– RND32
PC4: Julia Pockat, Jawad Yousef, Tejas Jayashankar – SILVER – 32 pts
PC5: Pip (Elsa) Engeriser, Mihir Khambete – RND32
