At the recent Northern Ireland Karate Championships which were held in QUB PEC in Belfast karate
students from the Scrabo club in Ards and the Carnalea and Aurora clubs in Bangor came away with a
Christmas sack of medals.
The top performer of the squad was Rachael Fleming from Bangor who gave fantastic performances in both
her individual kumite and kata winning them both for the second year in a row.
She was closely followed in results by her IKU European Championships team-mate, Craig Brashaw from
Newtownards who won his kata and somehow ended up with silver in the kumite final after fighting up a
weight and age category. Other members of the European squad also added to the tally with Karl
Andreasson winning his kata event, Levi Kane getting silver in her kata, Ben McIlroy collecting silver in his
kumite, again so nearly a gold and Dean Miller yet another medal to add to his collect with a bronze in kata.
Eight year old Cameron Speers took his first ever competition by storm and had the crowd on their feet
cheering when he won his individual kumite.
Also in their first competition Charlotte Rylance and Rachel Campbell collected silvers in their individual
kata and kumite respectively. Amy Adair from Conlig took a well deserved silver in her individual kumite.
Jessica Palmer got a bronze for her individual kata and the junior boys’ team of Ben McIlroy, Matthew
Dales and Karl Andreasson were narrowly beaten in the final of the team kumite. They were more than
happy with silver.
Coach Kevin Lewis added we had a superb day. There were approximately six hundred athletes at the
championship from around Ireland and the UK mainland. We had our biggest ever team entry with some
thirty competitors entered. We were delighted by all the medal successes and also by the performances of all
of our other competitors: Scott Boyd, Anna & Amy McCormick, Jason Rossborough, Tony Gribben, Archie
& Toby McKelvey, Jamie Mackey, Jacq Watton, Tom Johnston, Jonathan Sloan, Jamie Mayne, Jordan
Lewis, Daniel & Matthew Flannigan and Samuel Willingham