Thirteen medals – JKA England National Championships

Well we certainly didn’t go home empty handed – taking THIRTEEN medals for various individual and team categories. At the end of the competition, the Japanese Ambassador’s Cup was awarded to Ernst Theron for “Best Junior Male” by  Chief Instructor, Sensei Y. Ohta.

For the first time, JKA-England hosted both the Black and Brown belts and Kyu Grade Championships on the same day. With around 600 competitors entering and over 300 spectators, the K2 sports centre was the venue for the event which had earlier in the year also hosted the Junior European Championships.

The Kata and Kumite events were first with some excellent displays in the elimination rounds by all competitors. The standards increase year on year but this was a particularly high standard on all fronts.

The senior individual and team kata and kumite finals were the last event of the day, and still with a sizable audience left, the cheers of support for Colchester were thrilling.

Results: 4 Gold, 2 Silver and 7 Bronze
Ernst Theron – GOLD – Individual Kumite and Ambassadors cup for “Best Junior male”
Grace Duan – GOLD – Individual Kata and Bronze – Team Kata
Amy Walsh – SILVER – Individual Kumite and Bronze – Team Kata
Molly Fraser – Gold – Individual Kumite
John Wheal – Gold  – Individual Kumite
Callum Lepley – SILVER – Individual Kumite
Gareth Evans – Bronze – Individual Kumite
Sophie Skinner – Bronze – Individual Kumite
Kat Crosthwaite – Bronze – Individual Kata
Rhys Barber – Bronze – Individual Kumite
Shauna Walsh – Bronze – Team Kata
Sunny Duan – 4th place – Individual Kata