Berger ‘15 Pan-American Taekwondo Champ

Senior Kenny Berger returned last Sunday from a five day trip to Santa Catarina, Brazil, bringing home two gold medals and a silver medal titles from the Pan-American Taekwondo Games.The Pan-American games is a regional tournament for all of South America as well as the United States. Berger entered the games as a part of the United States demo team, a top-ten competitor for the US and as part of the national sparring team, which placed third out of all the countries.Along with his medals and international recognition of his mastery of the sport, Berger has also qualified for the world championships for the fourth time. The championships will take place in June 2015.On the first day of the competition, all the fighters competed for the Pan-American titles. Berger, who had not been informed that he was allowed to compete for the titles until shortly before his time to step into the ring, still managed to pull together gold-medal winning routines on the spot. “My ring was starting and one of the other guys saw my name on the list and was like ‘Yo, Kenny get over here right now, you're allowed to compete.’ So I did, and I did pretty well,” Berger said.His first event was traditional weapons, in which he competed with two nunchucks, demonstrating traditional forms. “It was actually the first time I had done those forms in a while so I was actually okay with getting second in that,” he continued.His next two events were sparring, creative weapons and extreme weapons. He did not place in sparring, but in extreme and creative weapons he competed with his bo staff, and won gold medals in each of those events.Berger was pleased with his success that day. “After I won, people were coming up and asking for photos, autographs and girls were writing their name down saying ‘hit me up on Facebook.’ It was pretty cool,” he said. “A lot of people were asking me for tips, like with the bo staff and how to kick higher. It felt really good; it was like being a little celebrity.”The second day of the tournament consisted of individual competitions to win points to qualify for the world championship, the team sparring event for the Pan-American title, and finally the closing ceremony in which the U.S. demo team performed. At the World Champion qualifiers, Berger earned enough points for a spot to compete in forms, sparring, creative weapons and extreme weapons at the upcoming tournament.After only a day of warming up, Berger was able to win gold in almost all of his events. “I hadn’t really been practicing, but all of the other U.S. guys had been practicing for months, so I’m thinking to myself about how well I could be doing if I was practicing all the time,” Berger said.For the team sparring, each country had rounded up a team of their five best fighters. Each of those fighters had to spar against another from a different country’s team and try to win points by landing successful punches and kicks. Whichever country had the most points after the five rounds won the match.The United States made it to the semifinals, where they fought Argentina and lost by only a few points.Berger was honored to have been selected to be on the national team, spar with the best in the world and represent his country. “It was different from normal competitions in the US in that there were all those different countries. In the U.S., no one really competes for anything but themselves. Going down there felt special because I was on the U.S. team, and that was something I had never done before. It felt great representing our country,” he said. “I also learned a lot from my teammates. They gave me some fantastic advice and tips, especially before and while I was sparring. They were very good.”At the closing ceremony, Berger and the rest of the U.S. demo team presented a group performance.“I was in the open-hand segment and the bo staff segment. It was very flashy, creative and extreme, not traditional taekwondo, but the spin kicks and the flips,” Berger said about the demonstration.After returning to Exeter, Berger’s friends couldn’t have been more proud of him for his accomplishments, especially since many were not fully aware of his talents.“From prep year, I knew that he had some kind of proficiency with weapons from the way he twirled his forks and knives at mealtimes just before digging into some food,” senior Josh Martinez said. “I've seen from routines he choreographs for illuminosity that he knows his stuff well enough to be able to teach people. His accomplishments are well-deserved, and he's made his dorm, his school and his country proud.”“He doesn't mention it often, but he's told me a little about his career in taekwondo back in California. I didn't see him train at all before he left for Brazil, so I was surprised when I heard how successful he was going up against kids that have been training consistently all year,” senior Warren Charleston said in agreement.Berger is looking forward to competing at worlds this summer in Little Rock, Arkansas and working with the same group of fighters for the team sparring event. In his three previous world championships, he has won four bronze medals, two silver, and one gold, in total. Berger said, “It’s my last world’s before college, so I’m looking to get some more medals. I’ve already qualified, so if I put a little more effort in, maybe I’ll place; maybe I’ll get another gold.”