Scottish National team Elite Squad members Naomi  Strathie and Jordyn Smith (both from Central TKD Academy, Stirlingshire) have been successful in their bid to join the Manchester based GB National Team high performance programme for cadets.  This is another step forward and a great boost for BTCB Scotland’s high performance programme set up by Master Nikos Jakubiak and his coaching staff.  Scottish National Team Head Coach, Master Nikos, responded to the news by saying: “Naomi and Jordyn are highly motivated girls with great potential and who have been showing continual improvement since they joined the Scottish National Team Development Squad (NTDS).  They are not afraid to push themselves hard and are always showing commitment to their training.  If they continue developing as they are then you can be certain that it will not be long before they achieve great results both with the Scottish and the British National teams”. 

In practical terms, joining the GB programme will provide both girls with more training designed specifically to meet the needs of those aspiring to compete at the highest level.   As Master Nikos explained, the time spent with the GB National Team coaches will complement the work done by the Scottish National team coaches and that of their club coach.  This is the first time that the high performance coaching teams of the Scottish and British National teams will be working in an integrated manner to ensure continuity and optimisation of coaching objectives for all Scots who excel.

Following a particularly difficult period in Scottish Taekwondo politics, the girls’ achievement reflects the sentiment of the coaching team and that of the programme’s core values - putting Scotland’s players’ interests first, focusing on the players performance and helping them achieve their short term and long term goals.   It goes to show that Scottish players within our programme who have the ability and who are putting in the work can be given every opportunity to train and compete at the highest level.  We cannot be certain as to whether or not people from Scotland’s high performance programme who make it to the GB squads will achieve a place in the Olympics or the World Championships but we know that they are getting their chances to fight for such privilege.

There is no doubt there are many more young players around Scotland with a lot of ability and potential who can make it to the GB squad.  We hope this is an inspiration to all players both in the programme and those yet to join us and we would welcome anyone who wishes to do so.  For more information on our High Performance Programme and training dates venues go to www.taekwondoscotland.org and visit our Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/taekwondoscotland .