COMBINED martial arts national teammates Sheckema Cunningham, Shaun Barnes, Alrick Wanliss and Nicholas Dussard emerged top performers at the recent McKay Security Taekwondo Open at the University of Technology.

International Taekwondo Federation world championship bronze medallist Wanliss was unbeatable in the lightweight division where he stopped veteran Joel Ellis, who is on the comeback trail.

Among the top performers of the evening was Wanliss' fellow world championship bronze medallist Sheckema Cunningham, who mowed her way through the female division.

After cruising into the semis, Cunningham easily got past Karyll Bennett to face teammate Danielle Chang, who she easily beat in the final.

title defence

"The competition locally is not really stiff," Cunningham said after her title defence. "I am really on form before going to New York next month," she added.

Chang had to be content with second place, whereas Bennett's return marked her intention of qualifying for the female combined team.

Barnes, a staple of the male combined team, now dubbed the Manna Fighters, defeated the highly touted Kevin McDowell to take the heavyweight title in what could easily be his best-ever performance on the local scene.

Dubbed the 'Bronze King' at the end of 2010 after winning bronze at US Open, Red Tiger Inter-national and all but one local tourney where he won a gold, Barnes stepped up and proved that was not his colour of choice for 2011.

Despite being shorter and lighter than McDowell, due to him stepping up from middle to heavyweight, Barnes was able to use speed and power to create a major upset.

"I was the 'Bronze King'," he said after the match. "I won gold at the Shai Tai tournament last year, but all my other medals were bronze.

"The feeling is overwhelming. I faced some of the toughest competitors in the division and was able to come out successful. I fought McDowell, my teammate. At the end of the first round - a draw - my stamina was a little better and I was able to perform better in the second round."

Meanwhile, Dussard, who also stepped up in weight division to middleweight, was in exceptional form, defeating Scott Wright, who hasn't quite regained form since losing to Oshane Murray at the black belt invitational last year.

"It's the first time I've actually fought middleweight. The lightweight division doesn't normally have many competitors, so I decided to step it up to middle. It wasn't that much difference.

"The better fighters in middle are usually Vascianna and Wright. I know them and train with them, so I figured it wasn't going to be that hard."

The Taekwondo Open is consistently one of Jamaica's top martial-arts tournaments. It attracted more than 600 competitors, ranging from pee-wees to adults.

Keith Edwards of Ningen Karate gave the tournament a passing grade.

"It was well attended. The judging went pretty smoothly. Some of the rings started late and finished late but, outside of that, things went smoothly and the judging was pretty fair. Overall, I gave it a seven or eight out 10."