17/05/2026
Serbia gave us medals, bruises, heartbreak, exhaustion, pride — and perspective.
At the Asterisk E3 and Asteriks Cup, our team walked away with:
E3: 🥈 🥉 🥉
Cup: 🥇 🥈 🥉 🥉
The E3 began early. Random weigh-ins. Delays. Technical issues. Long hours waiting to compete. No matter. It’s all part of the hustle.
Brayden and Robin drew experienced continental-level opposition in the round of 16 and lost. Matteo battled through convincingly with a superb win before exiting in the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, Jean and Michela produced magnificent quarter-final performances against Montenegro and Greece to reach the semi-finals. And what semi-finals they were. Jean against Serbia. Michela against Israel. Both fights balanced on a knife edge until the final moments. Both lost narrowly. Both earned bronze.
And Alycia…
A quarter-final win over Serbia. A semi-final win over Serbia — finished with that beautiful step-spin that makes you forget for a second how hard this sport really is.
Then came the final against Bulgaria.
Everything looked possible until injury changed the course of the night.
Silver medal. Tournament over.
What stayed with me, though, was not the podium.
It was midnight. An exhausted team, emotionally drained after a brutal day with the guys rallying to their injured teammate. No complaints. No drama. Just instinctive solidarity.
That was Taekwondo.
The next morning, after very little sleep, we went again.
Alycia could not compete, but she stood with us as we got into the mix.
Again: that was Taekwondo.
The second day brought more difficult lessons. Ferdie fought injured against Bulgaria. Michela narrowly lost to Greece. Czarek lost in the -87kg category, but then stepped into +87kg, reached another final, and beat Romania.
And then the younger boys lit the tournament alive.
Jean fought brilliantly for silver, losing a razor-close final to Turkey after overcoming Israel.
But it was in junior -55kg, where Malta really arrived in force.
Robin earned a convincing victory over Bulgaria before narrowly falling to Hungary.
Meanwhile, Matteo defeated Serbia, then Greece. Brayden came through Bulgaria and Greece on the other side of the draw. Eventually, the two Maltese athletes stood opposite each other in the semi-final — coached by their own teammates over smiles.
Brayden advanced, faced Hungary in the final. And won.
People often think Taekwondo is an individual sport but it isn’t.
It is teammates carrying each other after defeat. Pushing one another through injury. Standing in warm-up halls together after midnight. Watching one teammate succeed while another hurts. Learning how to lose together. Learning how to keep going together.
Sometimes results come your way. But many times they don’t. Even when you do everything right.
But hard experiences have a way of revealing people’s character. And if you’re lucky, they also build something stronger between them.
