Tona to face Aussie at PNG titles

By FRANKLIN KOLMA
PAPUA New Guinea’s female international gold medallist in taekwondo Theresa Tona is gearing up for one of her toughest fights in May.
Tona is scheduled to face a yet to be named opponent in Australia. 
The 20-year-old martial artist is ranked 12th in the world  and currently lives  and trains under recently appointed PNG Olympic taekwondo coach Andy Rutten in Adelaide.
She will fly into the country for the feature fight.
This fight, dubbed “The Olympic Challenge,” will be a rematch of a controversial fight at the South Australia Open earlier this month which saw Tona win the gold medal despite calls by some officials that the match should have gone the other way.
This feature fight will be staged on May 27 at the Sir John Guise Indoor Complex to mark the 1st National Taekwondo Championships.
The championships will run for two days, the first being the elimination round and the second being the finals.
The event that will see all taekwondo schools around the country participate.
President of Taekwondo PNG Ower Illa, told The National that the national championships would be run with electronic scoring systems and by internationally renowned officials from the World Taekwondo Federation.
and added that this would be part of the process of seeing who could handle the atmosphere. “This event will serve as an avenue for the selection of possible representatives to the 2015 Pacific Games,” said Mr. Illa.
He also said that two teams will be selected from the National Championships, teams A and B. The fighters selected for these two teams will then be prepared for the 2015 Pacific Games.