Saturday, December 01, 2007

Muay Thai World Championship


Congratulations to Thai Nguyen for making it to the second round of the Muay Thai World Championship! Thai has been training in Muay Thai for the last two years and has made tremendous progress. Though he is an Austrialian, he and one other Aussie of Vietnamese descent represented Vietnam at the tournament involving nearly 100 nations.
Thai's first fight was against the president of the Ugandan Muay Thai Association. Though the Ugandan had a strong right hand punch, he was no match for Thai's arsenal of kicks, punches, knees and elbows. The referee stepped in to call the fight when it became clear that the Ugandan was in danger of being hurt.
The following fight was between Venezuela and South Africa. The South African was fit and quick but found himself devestated in the first round by Manza, the lanky Venezuelan. Ducking under one of Manza's stinging jabs the South African found a roundhouse knee to the face was the end to his fight. Unfortunately Thai met a similar fate facing the experienced Venezuelan.
Toward the end of the first action packed round, Thai slipped under the long reach of Manza and got an extremely high rising knee to the nose. The fight continued briefly with punches thrown by both before the referee called in the Dr. to examine Thai's nose. Though Thai was ready to continue fighting, the Dr. decided that the break was to risky and called the fight. Though Thai was extremely dissappointed not to have progressed he can be proud of the fact that he fought well in both of his fights. Of minor consulation: the Venezuelan, who trains in Spain, has won championships is Germany and for all of Europe.
Sojos church extends its congratulations to Thai for being a good witness to his sport both in his skills and in his sportmanship.

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