Top Taekwondo talent Jay Pringle (Year 11) is showing winning form after taking a silver medal and winning all his group events at the Taekwondo European Championships in April.

Jay was honoured to be chosen as the official flag-bearer at the event, hosted in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, having won gold in last year’s European Championships.

The pressure was on this year, since Jay had moved up a weight category.  Last year’s win has made him the junior -50kg European champion, but this year he was competing in the -55kg category.

Jay progressed comfortably through the heats in his patterns category and came face to face with the current World and European Champion, also his England team-mate, in the final.  This was the first all-England final since 2015!  In this ultimate test of skill and courage, he performed extremely well, only narrowly missing out on gold to be crowned vice European Champion with a silver medal. 

“I was hoping to get the double but I’m over the moon to be on the podium again at such a big event,” said Jay, ever ambitious to reach the top.  Jay regularly faces this opponent in national competitions but had never faced him on the international stage, since he had never reached the final for patterns before.  This just shows how far Jay has come, and we hope that one day,  with lots of hard work,  he will be crowned European Champion for patterns.

The final day brought the team events, which saw Jay take part in team sparring.  He was last to take to the mat, with three of the four England team members before him having lost their fights.  Jay showed strength of character and extreme skill to not only win his round but to win it so convincingly that he almost pulled it back for the team, only narrowly missing out on progressing to the next round.

Jay now has time off from competing but will be training hard in the summer to get ready for the World Championships in October.

Jay continues to chase his dream, and we’re behind him all the way!