Nhan Hoang, John Flores, Hoa Le, Phillip Le and Phillip Chien will all compete for Australia at the taekwondo World Championships. 66829 Picture: KRISTIAN SCOTT
By Liam Twomey
FIVE taekwondo students from Melbourne’s western suburbs are preparing for one of the hardest challenges in world sport.
Brother and sister, Phillip and Hoa Le from Sunshine North, will be joined by Phillip Chien from Sunshine, John Flores from Deer Park and Nhan Hoang from Yarraville at the ITF World Taekwondo Championships which will take place in North Korea.
Danny Kordanovski is the head coach for the Australian taekwondo team and the chief instructor at the International Taekwon-Do Defence Force in Sunshine where the five students practise. Kordanovski has previously had some of his students qualify for the world championships but never as many as five.
“I was blown away, to get five from the state is a special effort, but to get five from one club is mind blowing,” Kordanovski said.
Kordanovski has been training this group of students for at least eight years and in the case of Hoang, the two have been working together for 13 years. He knew that he had the makings of a special group and now that they are all over 18, which is the legal competing age for world championships, Kordanovski can begin to enjoy some of the team’s success.
“The past was working on getting there, now we are here we can ride the wave a bit and enjoy it,” Kordanovski said.
Kordanovski has been practising taekwondo since he was six years old. In that time he has built up a wealth of experience after competing in eight world championships himself and then attending a further five as head coach.
However, no matter how much experience anyone has in Taekwondo, Kordanovski says nothing can prepare his students for what they will experience when competing in front of some of the most passionate and hostile fans in the world in North Korea.
“I’m trying to prepare them for what it’s going to be like in North Korea. There are going to be live telecasts of the event, there will be press everywhere and police escorts. It’s not going to be like anything they have experienced before,” Kordanovski said.
“For the North Koreans it’s like AFL in Victoria in terms of popularity.”
“With their ideology behind them they have no compassion for errors.”
“It can be hard for the Westerners to adjust to that sort of crowd.”
Despite the level of competition Kordanovski is confident his athletes can match it with the best in the world.
Only one competitor from each country can compete in each weight division of each event, making qualification in itself an outstanding achievement.
In total 15 Taekwondo athletes from Australia will compete at the championships. They leave Australia in early December.
