Chong Lee died last July at the age of 79.

The tribute was led by Evangelos Ligeros, from the Montreal-based Chong Lee Taekwondo club that Lee founded, and by Wayne Mitchell, President, Taekwondo Canada.

"Grand Master Chong Lee was the founder of taekwondo in Canada, bringing our great art with his arrival in 1964," said Mitchell.

"His enthusiasm, dedication and commitment to excellence has touched all aspects of taekwondo development.

"He had produced too many great athletes, national team members and international champions to name.

"His belief that education would make better coaches and a stronger athlete was unwavering."

The event, from September 29 to October 1, followed the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships over the previous two days, which featured 277 athletes from 11 countries in Junior and Senior divisions as well as poomsae.

The host country won the largest number of gold medals, at 31, followed by Australia with 12 and India with six.

Award recipients were as follows: Female VIP - Andrea Jerom; Male VIP - Jordan Stewart; Best Coach, Female Division - Sung Min Son; Best Coach, Male Division - Jerome Cabanatan; Best Referee - Daniel Park; Best Referee - Angela De Abreu.

While De Abreu is from India, all the others are Canadian.

In the Canada Open, there was a strong showing from the United States, with 56 gold medals, while the Canadians took 22 gold in 18 different weight classes. 

Poomsae spectators were treated to world-class performances by gold medallists Ho Duy Tran and Kim Uyen Le, both from Vietnam.

In the Open Awards the United States took both Female VIP, in Carissa Fu, and her male counterpart, David Kim.

Team USA also took both coach awards, Yosvany Perez for the women and Dan Chuang for the men.

The  referee awards went to Canada's Sonia Villeneuve and South Korea's Yuong Hwan Choi.

Darryl Ely, Taekwondo, Canada's events manager, said that the two events had proved that Canada had the capacity to host such events.

"The success of these two events also is a confidence boost for us to plan and bid for large-scale World Taekwondo-sanctioned events in the near future."

National Championships are due in February but the date and location of next year's Canada Open has yet to be decided.