Four students from the University of Southampton Taekwondo club have been selected to represent Team Southampton at the EUSA European University Games 2024 Qualifiers.
Oliver Perez, said “I am beyond grateful for all the support offered by SUTKD club, under which I have been able to qualify for my 2nd EUG event despite working full-time this year as part of my Year in Industry. All the dedication from my coaches last year from SUTKD and the UoS performance programme truly impacted the athlete I am today.”
Maxmime Pennell said “Having started Taekwondo at University in 2019 with no prior experience in any martial arts, I am so proud to be able to qualify for my first European University Games Event. Despite being my last year at Southampton Uni I wouldn’t of been able to do it without the support of SUTKD and our coaches, I’m truly happy with how far I’ve come at Soton.”
Isra Ilyas said “I’m proud to have qualified for the European Games for the fourth and final time as a student. I’m grateful to both the university club coaches and LMC taekwondo club for helping me progress in WT sparring over the years, which I more so took up whilst at university. I’m beyond grateful to the university for the Sports Scholarship for providing S&C sessions over the past few years. Over the years I have achieved 9x 🥇, 11x 🥈 and 7x 🥉 at BUCS through their hell and finished overall first place across the BUCS 2023-24 series across the ITF -47kg and WT -49kg divisions. Having come back with a 🥉 in Lodz, Poland in 2022, I’m looking forward to stepping on the ring one final time (as a student anyway) this July in Hungary and hoping to make that a 🥇.”
Ervinas Luckauskas said “Throughout my Taekwondo career, I’ve been a part of 4 different clubs and although my time at SUTKD has been the shortest, I can see the club’s positive impact on my university life. I’ve competed both nationally and internationally; medalling in many of these competitions. Qualifying for the European University Games for a sport I’ve dedicated a large portion of my life is a great achievement and I hope to perform well on behalf of this University and the newer members who look up to the seniors. I’d like to thank SUSU for their support for the EUG and I hope both Isra and I bring back medals from Hungary this July.”
Best of luck to our athletes for the rest of their journey, we cannot wait to see what the future holds for you!👏🏼