Great day at the JKS England Squad Competition

The JKS England Squad competition took place in Leeds on Sunday 28th February.  This is a particularly big year for Squad members with the JKS World Championships taking place in Scotland in September and the WKF World Championships in Austria in October.

The format of the event is a little different to normal with categories split into groups of between 3 and 5 competitors, all of whom have a match against each other with the top two in each group progressing to a knockout stage.

There were some very good performances, particularly from our younger end.  Johann Santos and David Lister won the Kids Kata and Boys Kumite respectively.  Both are aged 15 and then went on to compete in the Senior events too, where Johann took Bronze and David Silver.

The Girls Kumite was won well by Sarah Howarth who must have recorded the fastest ever Nihon victory with two Ippon scores with only 4 seconds of the match gone on the clock.

Jordan Weatherley took a narrow victory over Lee Lamb in the Senior Kata and JKS England Squad Captain Ashley Scott-Heald won the Female Kumite, knocking Amber Bannister into second place.

Sam Coxon performed very well to take the Senior Male Kumite event, using his height and reach to great effect.

All entry fees and spectator fees go directly to the JKS Squad fund and around £500 was raised as a result.

The Squad have the following competing in upcoming International events before the EKF Nationals take place in April in Sheffield.

WKF Karate 1 World Cup, Lasko, Slovenia-Ashley Scott-Heald
WKF Karate 1 Premier League, Rotterdam, Holland-Lee Lamb
WKF Karate 1 Premier League and Dubai Open, Dubai, United Arab Emirates-Ashley Scott-Heald, Lee Lamb, Jordan Weatherley, Johann Santos, Amber Bannister, Lacie Stembridge, David Lister, Joe Hird & Rowan Reeve.

Best of luck to all.

All the results are listed below.

Senior Male Kumite
1. Sam Coxon
2. David Lister
3. Tom Mitchell & Zach Sharp

Senior Female Kumite
1. Ashley Scott-Heald
2. Amber Bannister
3. Hannah Cain

Boys Kumite
1. David Lister
2. Isaac Mitchell
3. Seb Mitchell & Joe Hird

Girls Kumite
1. Sarah Howarth
2. Alice Whittington
3. Lori-Ann Moran & Amelia Stanley

Adult Kata
1. Jordan Weatherley
2. Lee Lamb
3. Johann Santos & Lacie Stembridge

Kids Kata
1. Johann Santos
2. Grace Baron
3. Sam Jackson & Rowan Reeve