Guyana claim 20 medals at 8th ISKF/CKC Karate Championships – cop 10 gold

Aug 20, 2009 Sports

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Guyana won 10 Gold, 4 Silver and 6 Bronze medals when 16 Guyanese karetekas competed in the 8th ISKF/CKC Karate Championships which was just concluded on Sunday in St. Lucia.
The National Team, with 6 karetekas, won 5 Gold, 2 Silver and 2 Bronze medals in Individual events and 1 Team gold. The Karate College team, which was 10 in number, won 2 gold and 2 silver and 3 bronze medals in individual events and 1 bronze medal in a team event.
The karetekas and the senseis then combined and won 2 more gold medals in team events.
This was quite a remarkable showing from this small team when compared to the other countries like the top medaling country, Barbados, which had over forty karetekas with entries in almost all of the 33 categories.
Best category competitor was won by J. Mortley of the Karate College in the 7-9 category where he won gold in individual kata, bronze in individual kumite and gold in team kata in the combined team with K. Cornelius and M. Broomes.
Alisa Wong of the college team won gold in the individual kata and should have doubled in kumite but somehow got distracted, lost in the semi-final and then lost in her bronze medal match. Her sister A. Wong won the silver.
Christy Dey, 9-11 category, and Kristina Cheeks, 12-4 category, were very outstanding with triple gold in individual kata, individual kumite and team kata. These two girls were the only category winners with triple gold medals. Young Dey and Leah Shariff then went up a category to join Cheeks to win the 12-14 team kata.
World gold medalist, Leah Shariff lost on a difficult call in her 10-11 kumite match up with R. Sampson of St. Lucia.
In the kata final, she was tied with team mate, Christy Dey on 21.9 points. She lost in the tie breaker when her score of 21.6 lost out to Dey who had a another 21.9. Dey was clearly the favourite in the kumite and revenged her team mate when she took out Sampson in the final.
Kemo Cornelius and Mikhail Broomes had it rough in the 9-11 boys category. World kumite champion, K. Coppin of Barbados, won both the kata and kumite.
Cornelius got the silver and Broomes got the bronze in kata with Cornelius getting bronze in kumite. They however, were able to recompose when they teamed up with Mortley to take the gold in the 10-11 team kata.
In the junior marquee 15-17 category, national team member Samuel Ming was tied for first in the boys’ kata, in the final eight competitor points system final.
He scored 21.9 points alongside top Barbadian K. Fenty and top Trinidadian M. Benjamin. In the tie breaker both Fenty and Benjamin scored 21.7 with their second kata.
Ming then took to the ring and drew louder cheering from the enthusiastic crowd at the end of a powerful performance. His score of 22.0 brought more cheers as he took the gold.
Another tie breaker gave Fenty the silver with a score of 21.7 while Benjamin took bronze with 21.6. In the kumite both Ming and Eric Hing were in the final eight. Hing fought top St. Lucian entry, M. Agbanrin and won.
Ming then took to the ring in the last quarter-final match against number 2 Trinidad entry, M. Benjamin. Ming scored first but in his haste to finish the match got in too close and got injured in the exchange when a thumb nail ripped his left eyelid.
He was unable to continue and Benjamin was disqualified for excessive contact. Hing then lost to the eventual gold medal winner, S. Holder of Barbados in a tight and close match.
He then went on to defeat the number one entry of Trinidad, Daniel Shim, for the bronze. Shim got a walkover as he should have faced the winner of the Ming/Benjamin match in the second semi-final. K. Wong of the college also took part in this category.
He lost in the first round of kata and in the second round of kumite but got some valuable experience.
The Lopes sisters, Ashley and Krystal, of the college, were both first timers in international competition. Krystal won a creditable silver in kumite and they teamed up with young Alisa Wong to take the bronze in team kata.
Nathalie Gibson of the national team and Tanya Teixeira of the college were entered in the 18-40 adult marquee women group.
Teixeira was unfortunate as she drew world rated number 1 Trinidad entry, Nicole Lambie in the first round of kata and was defeated and knocked out. When world number 8, Gibson took to the ring, there were concerns over her knee.
She was seconds into her kata when a loud snap was heard and she collapsed to the floor. She had to be lifted out and was ruled out for the rest of the tournament.
Teixeira was also defeated in the first round of kumite. Her experience here, as a brown belt, should do her well for the future.
Three Guyanese sensei’s, Amir Khouri, Jeffrey Wong and Neville Mortley also teamed up to win the 45+ Senior Men Team Kata from Trinidad and St. Lucia.
The Guyanese karatekas continue to perform well on the world stage and are a force to reckon with at these tournaments.
It has become quite obvious that local Sensei’s are among the best in the world and should they continue to get support, they will continue to keep the golden arrowhead flying high.
The national team had consisted of 15 karetekas but funding for only six were raised by the association.

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