The member of the Patiño taekwondo Club Virginia Sixto achieved her first gold at the international level this weekend. The athlete was making her debut in an international competition and the chosen venue was the Croatian Open, held in Zagreb.
Sixto competed in the Master 1 category (under 50 years old) and climbed to the top of the podium. Next to her were the Finnish Johanna Nikari, the French Yew Chen and the Austrian Anita Schermer.
The athlete from Patiño – who during her youth became part of the Spanish karate team. «It is showing spectacular evolution in this modality. At the national level, she is one of the regulars on the podiums and this international gold confirms her level in this discipline,” says Miguel Patiño.
Virginia Sixto was not the only representative of the club in the competition held in the Croatian capital. Sara Pena competed in the elite category, in which there were more than 40 participants. Among them the world number one, Eva Sandersem, as well as several top ten.
This Croatian Open served to debut in Europe a competition format of simultaneous direct confrontations, with a momentary poomsae draw, making it “new, attractive and uncertain.” Sara Pena played three eliminatory rounds and lost by barely one hundredth to the German Adina Machwirth, who won bronze in the last world championship in the freestyle modality. Previously, Pena had defeated the representatives of Czechia and Belgium.
This competition was a good international break for the Patiño athlete, who is called up with the Spanish senior women’s team for the next World Cup in Hong Kong.
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