General

Registration for the Open Dutch 2020 will open tomorrow, November the 1st. We would like to point out that we are limiting the competition to a maximum of 700 participants, after which registration will be closed. So don’t wait until the very last minute, as you may miss out. Also, registration is only open for A, B and C class for both Sparring and Patterns. In other words, there is no D-class!

As we said in a previous blog, we hope that this makes it clear to everyone that it is extremely important to register early. If you wait until the last day then chances are the competition is full. We have decided to only open up the competition to A, B, and C-class so that it will hopefully offer space for everyone. You may wonder why we made this decision, from the very first edition it was always our goal to have a high-quality taekwon-do tournament in Europe with global top competitors. We feel it is fair to say that we have achieved this goal, but in order to ensure quality, we need to limit quantity. Hence we decided to focus on A, B, and C-class and put a limit in place.

You can find the invite, poster, and link to Sportdata here. We hope to see you at the Open Dutch 2020!

Recently the hotel which is located right above the sports venue has changed owners. It was called City Resort Hotel Helmond, it is now owned by the Fletcher group and is called Wellness-Hotel Helmond. If you booked a room then be assured that nothing will change, the rate will stay the same and your reservation is still valid. We are sharing this so that people don’t get confused when visiting their website. The hotel’s website is now: https://www.wellnesshotelhelmond.nl/.

Please note, the hotel is officially sold out for Friday to Saturday. Other hotel options are listed on our accommodations page. We are going full steam ahead with the preparations, hope to see you all 25th of January 2020.

We just received a great video of the Open Dutch 2019 edition, great work by Pieter Dillen and Gytis Kazlauskas. Thanks guys, for the hard work and we hope to share many more exciting clips in the up months through our social channels, mainly instagram, if you aren’t following us yet, make sure you do!

We have been working really hard to get all the required documents ready early this year. We want to make it possible for everyone to plan well ahead! We are also introducing a change in the format of the tournament, this is the result of the enormous growth we had in the past 3 years. Please read the following excerpt from the invitation:

Competition is open for youth, juniors and seniors in the A, B, and C-class for the categories sparring and patterns. Please note, there is no D-class and the competition is limited to 700 competitors this year!

We hope that this makes it clear to everyone that it is extremely important to register early. If you wait until the last day then chances are the competition is full. We have decided to only open up the competition to A, B, and C-class however so that will hopefully offer space for everyone. You may wonder why we made this decision, from the very first edition it was always our goal to have a high quality taekwon-do tournament in Europe with global top competitors. We feel it is fair to say that we have achieved this goal, but in order to ensure quality, we need to limit quantity. Hence we decided to focus on A, B, and C-class and put a limit in place.

The official invite can be found below, please download the appropriate PDF and read carefully. Every year we receive many questions about rules etc, everything you need to know is included in the invite which find here.

Although we are still 10 months out, the first hotel is already fully booked for the weekend of the Open Dutch 2020. Well, I should probably be a bit more specific: all rooms which could be booked against the Open Dutch 2020 rate are gone at Fletcher Wellness Hotel Helmond (the hotel right above the venue.) There are about 12 Deluxe/Superior rooms left, if you would like to stay at the Wellness Hotel Helmond we would recommend booking asap, as we expect they will probably run out of rooms completely by the end of March.

Of course there are great alternatives listed, in Helmond and the surrounding area. For instance Hotel West-Ende is walking distance from the venue. Have a look at our accommodations page for more details on each of the hotels we recommend and the rates we negotiated with them.

Note that some hotels (West-Ende, Nobis Asten, Hotel Plein-Vijf) do provide the option to stay with up to 4 people in a room, which could be a great cheap alternative.