Competitions- 3rd South Yorkshire Open
The Woodford Karate Club took place in the 3rd South Yorkshire Open Karate Championships on the 1st August, at the Hillsborough Leisure Centre in Sheffield. Sukoshi Ryu Karate run the event, in conjunction with Shindo Kai Karate and it is always a good event for both our novice students and those who are more experienced. In total 10 Woodford Students took part, winning a total of 8 medals.
The medals began to arrive early, as the Kata events got started. Within these categories the Woodford Dojo had six competitors, all junior students. Unfortunately Hasan Zorba missed his category because of his train arriving in Sheffield a little too late.
The first medal went to Teerth Dhesi in the low grade Kata division. Teerth managed two wins before he lost a match, meaning he took the groups first medal of the day, a bronze! This was soon to be followed by Harry Oetegenn and Joe Munro in the boys senior grade division. Both boys managed to follow Teerth's earlier example, by moving through the early rounds and into a semi-final slot. This, as with Teerth before them, was to be as far as they went though, as they both lost their respective semi-final matches. A pleasing result though as two more bronze medals were added to the tally.
The Kumite categories followed those of the Kata and once again Woodford had good representation. All ten Woodford students took part in the Kumite sections and by the end of the day another five medals would be added to the total for the day.
The first of these would be won by Ragen Allitt. Ragen was fighting in the boys low grade section and managed to copy Teerth's earlier result by winning through to the semi-finals. He too would fall at this stage but as with the earlier Kata performances Ragen added yet another bronze to the Woodford haul.
This story would be repeated twice more before the day's end. The next bronze medal would go to the boys team of Harry Oetegenn, Joe Munro and Andrew Parker. Their semi-final was a close run affair, but ended with a score of one loss and two draws, meaning their opposition had the edge. And as if the day's script had been written in advance the next bronze would go to Chris Fenton in the senior men's section. Chris battled hard and progressed through the early rounds, as did Barry Meanwell in the same category. Chris was to falter at this juncture though and miss the opportunity of a final match up with Barry. Another bronze medal for Chris though helped to swell the total so far.
Barry won his semi-final, meaning that he stood a chance of winning the gold medal. His opponent in the final would be Brian Kanyanga from Kenyukai and Barry was to give one of his best performances of the day. By he time the match was over the score was 8-0 in Barry's favour and the gold medal was his.
This was actually Woodford's second gold medal of the day, as Barry had earlier defeated all before him in an earlier category. On this occasion his opponent in the final was England International Sonny Roberts. He would have a tougher match this time, but still managed to defeat the experienced Roberts in a tightly fought match. (Click Here) to watch the match between Barry and Sonny Roberts.
This video is hosted by You Tube and cannot therefore be a guaranteed connection indefinitely. (03/08/2010)
