Help Damyan Compete at the 2019 ITF World Champs

Damyan is 15 years old and holds a 1st Dan Junior Black Belt in ITF Taekwon-Do. He has been selected into the ITFNZ National Taekwon-Do Team and is one of its youngest members. He will be representing New Zealand in sparring at the ITF World Championship to be held in Germany from 24-28 April 2019 ( https://www.taekwondoitf.org/event/world-championships-2019-germany/ ). His goal is to win a medal for New Zealand there. He is already training hard but is planning to step it up and improve himself further in the next couple of months leading up to the tournament to put in his best effort.

Damyan has been learning martial arts ever since he was 5 years old and has always had a passion for sparring right from the start. He has also not let his hearing disability (a cholesteatoma with resulting unilateral hearing loss) and lots of operations hold him back from his passion. He has worked and practised very hard over the years and put in a lot of effort and many friends, instructors and coaches have helped and mentored him too. He has been very active in NZ competitions and is a multiple and current NZ National gold medal champion in the Sparring and Special Technique (flying kick) categories for his age division. Last year he competed in the ITF Taekwon-Do World Cup in Sydney Australia, his first International tournament, and by winning gold in sparring, became an ITF Taekwon-Do World Cup champion at the age of 14.

Unfortunately Damyan receives no Government funding for his sport and he is a student. Costs are estimated at more than $5000 and include Airfares ($2275), Transport to event ($85), Team hotel ($1310), Tournament entry fee ($210), Competition and Team Uniform ($700), Insurance ($140), High Performance training, domestic flights to high performance camps and other training ($1000).

So, Damyan will be very grateful for any donation / support you may offer to help him achieve his dream. Thank you very much for your time in reading this.