It was a scene out of the movie “Rocky”.
The underdog defies the odds and knocks off the top athlete in the sport on his way to winning a championship and earning the respect of all those who saw or heard about how hard he competed and how much he wanted to win.
For the grapplers at TKO Academy in Richmond Hill, that storyline was no longer a movie, it was real. 15 athletes traveled to Trenton, New Jersey to join 2,500 competitors from around the world and battle for a world championship title in front of 5,000 spectators. There were teams from all over the world as the best in the sport from Germany, Japan, Puerto Rico and Mexico attempted to prove that they belong among the best.
Then there was the TKO team.
Without any fanfare, the TKO contingent travelled to the competition by packing 17 people into a rented 15 passenger van. After stopping along the way to sight-see in Washington, D.C., the squad was ready for the big time. The competition level was very high and as one could imagine, it generated a lot of nerves.
“We did a lot of praying,” admitted Mike Ahmay, owner and lead instructor of the TKO Gym. “We prayed on the way. We prayed in the van. We prayed at the competition. We did everything we could to settle our nerves. The kids did a lot better than I initially thought in dealing with their nerves and as a result each one of them just did an awesome job. I couldn’t be happier with what they accomplished.”
What they accomplished was amazing. In a remarkable run of excellence, the members of TKO literally dominated the world class competition. Not only did every member of the team win a medal, but TKO won the most medals from any team that attended the meet.
“When we first started, we came in as the underdog,” explained Ahmay. “We were the small school. Other teams kind of looked down at us since we came in with only 14 athletes. Teams were there with 25 or 30 kids. When we stepped out there we didn’t have uniforms like they had. So when you put it all together, they started to underestimate us – until we started winning.”
“Then we began winning and people really started to look at us differently,” said Ahmay. “People started to approach us and ask us how we train and they asked what kind of curriculum we have in our school. You could start to see the looks on their faces change when they called the TKO School members up. We had made a name for ourselves and really stepped up the ladder from where we started at the beginning of the tournament to mid-way through the event.”
The fire was lit early by one of the TKO instructors as Dennis Middleton, without telling anyone on the team, entered the competition and won a gold medal in his division. To say that it fueled the fire of the squad would be an understatement.
“He represented our school to the fullest,” said Ahmay about Middleton. “He actually signed up and didn’t tell anyone. The next thing we know we are hearing his name over the loudspeaker. They said, ‘and with the gold medal, Dennis Middleton.’ We didn’t know what to think of it until they said ‘TKO’ and we all just went running to try and find him. He was actually the first one of us to win and for him to step in there and prove a point with all these kids was just amazing. It was very heartwarming to see that one of our instructors had the confidence and ability to not only compete but to also win a gold medal.”
“Every kid medaled and took everything with grace,” added Ahmay. “We shook hands and bowed. We left our mark with our attitude, our ability and our sportsmanship. We came from a small school in Georgia, in fact we were the only team from Georgia there, and we went up there and blew the doors off of the place. I couldn’t say enough about how well these kids did and how well they represented their school and Richmond Hill.”
No comments:
Post a Comment