Tiger Martial Arts sent 16 students to the National Qualifier in Miami, Fla. on May 27-28. The students, ranging in age from 6-16, earned eight gold medals and all qualified for the 26th Junior Olympic Taekwondo Championships, scheduled to take place July 6-9 at the Georgia Dome.

Six of the students at Tiger attend The Counterpane School in Fayetteville, four of whom were gold medalists in Miami (Wesley Reed, Aladdin Koja, Matt Martin and David Collins) and two of whom were silver medalists (Chris Martin and Mandel Jones).

Others who won the gold medal were Muhammad Ali, Jerahmeel Boveland, Jasmine Clark and Immanuel Larry, while Kourbine Lee, Ronald Purifoy, Enya Absi and Carson Todd took silver and Gabriel Absi and Torre Washington took bronze.

“We won two more medals than we did last year,” said Master Koja, the head of Tiger Martial Arts. “Also, some of our students fared better than they did last year.”

The students at Tiger are looking forward to the matches in July but they are mixed on whether it is better to compete out of state or not. Reed enjoys seeing other places and having fun on the road with his teammates, while Purifoy is looking forward to having a lot of his family members cheering him on in July.

The competition at the Georgia Dome promises to be one of the largest that the students in Tiger will compete in this year and some athletes will have seven or more matches over the course of the competition.

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