At the recent Northern Ireland Open Karate Championships that were held in Queen’s University Belfast PEC by Karate Northern Ireland, local athletes from Newtownards and Bangor were in the think of the action amongst some five hundred competitors from around Ireland.The Scrabo and Carnalea Karate clubs have a long history of being successful and this year was no exception.
We were delighted when Newtownards student Jordan Lewis lifted his first Northern Ireland title in Kumite (sparring), soon after to be followed with more titles by his Bangor team mates Karl Andreasson also in kumite, and Rachel Fleming in her individual kata.
All three of these students have won European and World medals in recent years, but nevertheless were delighted to be crowned local champions.
Karl then went on to lift two more medals, an individual bronze in kata and another bronze in team kumite alongside Luke Allen and Ben Rylance
Young Cameron Speers stepped up with a great performance to collect his first kata medal (bronze). The ever improving Jacq Watton Bronze lifted yet another medal to add to his collect with a bronze in individual sparring.
There were also great performances from Victor Andreasson, Amy Adair, Charlotte Rylance and Archie & Toby McKelvey all of which narrowly missed out on a medal on this occasion.
Coach Sam Lewis commented “Once again all the training the students have done and support from their families has paid off. We are very proud of their performances in a very tough competition arena. Congratulations to all of them.”