On the morning of September 9th we took a small squad to Llantrisant for the first South Wales open championships run by the Jason Ashcroft Sensei and the WSKO group.  The squad consisted of Alex Powell, Matt Davies-Lynott, Aaron O Neil Smith, Rhydian Rogers, Nathan Preece and Ioan Rogers.  First up was the kata and Ioan and Rhydian in their categories.  Ioan did well performing the kata Enpi but narrowly missed out on the medals by one round.  Rhydian was in the disability kata category and performed the katas Gojushiho-Sho and Kanku-Sho before taking a Gold medal.

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Kumite was up in the afternoon and Nathan was up first.  After progressing through two rounds he found himself in the final.  Unfortunately after time his opponent was two points up and was awarded the fight.  Well done on a hard fought silver medal.

Aaron and Matt were fighting in the -75kg category and this witnessed some fantastic matches and points.  Both did extremely well and Aaron fought hard for a bronze medal narrowly losing to the eventual winner by 1-0.  Matt missed out by one round to reach the semi's but he keeps improving each competition.

Next up was Alex in the +75kgs kumite.  It was clear from the start that Alex was looking comfortable and sharp.  He progressed through the rounds to see himself in the finals, but this was a difficult encounter.  Alex went a point down and from there was chasing the fight.  He fought to the end but wasn't quite enough for him to clinch the gold, but we were very happy with a hard fought silver.

 

Last event of the day saw the senior teams going head to head.  After some amazing fights and edge of your seat battles the team of Alex, Aaron and Matt secured a gold medal for Jks Wales.  Well done all.

 

In conclusion we took a team of 6 competitors and finished 6th in the medal table with 2 Golds, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze.

 

We look forward to being in action again in a few weeks at the Bkf international in Leicester.