Lee triples up on Taekwondo titles

Rockville High senior is world-caliber martial artist

‘‘There are always sacrifices,” Lee said. ‘‘Sometimes I have to choose taekwondo. But once you’re into a sport for a long time, you learn the ability to manage everything. Like, I’m senior class president and I’m able to fulfill my responsibilities. It was really exciting to win my third-straight gold at the U.S. Open.”

The U.S. Open is a three-day international competition for blackbelts. More than 1,000 athletes from 38 countries and 45 states, including several who have already qualified for the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China, attended this year’s event.

Lee, who fought in the male 14-17 middleweight sparring division, was one of three Montgomery County athletes to win gold for Team Remarck Sport Taekwondo out of Alexandria, Va. Clarksburg sophomore Sean Aston won the male 14-17 lightweight title and Wootton sophomore Emilia Morrow improved on last year’s bronze-medal display with a gold-medal performance in the female 14-17 light-weight competition. Montgomery College freshman Christina Johnson, who qualified for the Olympic Trials in 2007, won silver in the women’s 18-32 featherweight division.

Morrow, Aston and Johnson formerly trained at World Taekwondo Masters in Rockville, but moved to Remarck in November with coach Stephen Dring. In addition to some of this country’s top talent, Remarck trains international competitors for the International Olympic Committee and is revered as one of the top Taekwondo training facilities in the country.

In Taekwondo, which primarily focuses on kicking to overcome opponents, there are six belt colors: white, yellow, green, blue, red and black. There are several levels within each color, and once the black belt has been achieved, there are nine degrees within it, each degree host to several levels. In order to advance to higher levels, athletes must endure lengthy and strenuous tests of their skills. For parity and fairness, athletes compete in weight-class divisions: lightweight, featherweight, middleweight, heavyweight, fin, fly bantam and welter.

Though Taekwondo is an old martial arts form, it was first contested as an official Olympic sport at the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia. This year’s Olympic team is already set, but Lee is on track to compete for a spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic squad.

He was a member of the 2007 U.S. Junior National team, winning a gold medal at the ’07 Korean American Olympic Festival and bronze at the Pan American Junior Championships. Lee has already qualified to compete for a spot on this year’s junior national squad; the nation’s top four athletes in each weight division compete in a round-robin at the Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs, with the winner earning a position on the national team. Lee will travel to Colorado April 4 to defend his place.

Taekwondo requires discipline and a high level of physical fitness. Lee follows a strict cross-training regimen to maintain that. But the most intriguing aspect of the sport, for him, is the intelligence required to be an elite-level competitor. Lee enjoys analyzing and breaking down his opponents’ games.

‘‘I love the mental aspect of this sport,” Lee said. ‘‘I really rely on my ability to read my opponent. And when they make a mistake, take advantage of that. Not a lot of people have that.”

Lee will head to college next year. He doesn’t know where he’s going yet, but hopes to stay in the area to continue training at Remarck and realize his full potential as a Taekwondo athlete.

Notes: Other county athletes to medal at the U.S. Open include Churchill junior Molly Jacobs (Bronze in 14-17 welterweight and 18-32 bantamweight) and Hoover seventh-grader Maxwell Park (Bronze in 11-13 fly-weight).