The LKA took our adults Squad plus a small handful of our best child competitors down to Loughborough for the Karate England Nationals. This was an excellent chance to compete against a wider range of competitors from other association and styles. Interestingly, with this being an Open event, there was a representation there from the Romanian National Team.
Our first medalist was Holly Dickinson who took the Childrens Kata-Shotokan category with a good performance of Nijushiho. In the Senior Female Team Kumite the LKA Ladies fought very well to beat Romania in their opening match. With the match finishing in a 1-1 draw, both teams had to send out an extra fighter for a deciding match in which Ashley Scott did enough to give Leeds the win over Romania! The LKA Team then went on to lose in the final against Shikon. In the Rotation Team Kumite it was a different story with the LKA Ladies taking Gold this time. The Rotation Team is a very exciting ‘tag-team’ match lasting 6 minutes. The fighters can be tagged as often as you like, providing that they have been on the mat competing for a minimum of 20 seconds before the substitution. If a Team clocks up a 6 point lead within the time limit they win. An innovative and entertaining event, which places as much pressure on the Team Coach as the competitors!
In the Senior Male Kumite -75Kg category, we had a very good showing with 3 of the top 4 fighters coming from the LKA. Joe Hart took a very creditable 2nd place with Tom Little and Mark Hardy sharing joing 3rd. The winner of the event was a very talented Romanian competitor.
In the Male Team Kumite events, the LKA lost twice to the very strong Shikon team in both the Sanbon and Rotation events. However, particularly in the Sanbon event, the matches were closely fought. and we took 3rd place.
We would like to thank all the competitors and supporters for making the journey to Loughborough and if there was ine criticism of the event, it is that it was rather long with too many categories. The full list of our results was:
| Senior Female Rotation Team Kumite | 1st | Ashley Scott, Melissa Finlay and Lizzie Andrews |
| Childrens Kata Shotokan-Female | 1st | Holly Dickinson |
| Senior Female Team Kumite Sanbon | 2nd | Ashley Scott, Melissa Finlay and Lizzie Andrews |
| Senior Male Kumite +80Kg | 2nd | Sam Goulden |
| Senior Male Kumite -75Kg | 2nd | Joe Hart |
| Senior Male Kumite -75Kg | 3rd | Tom Little |
| Senior Male Kumite -75Kg | 3rd | Mark Hardy |
| Senior Female Kumite -60Kg | 3rd | Ashley Scott |
| Junior Male Kumite +80Kg | 3rd | Stephen Brown |
| Senior Male Team Kumite Sanbon | 3rd | Ryan Tucker, Joe Hart and Tom Little |
| Cadet Male Kumite -65Kg | 3rd | James Brown |
| Cadet Male Kata-Shotokan | 3rd | Callam Payne |
The full list of our 17 competitors was:
Ashley Scott, Ryan Tucker, Melissa Finlay, Joe Hart, Stephen Brown, James Brown, Holly Dickinson, Tom Little, Hayden Steele, Oliver Deane, Sam Goulden, Mark Hardy, Lizzie Andrews, Jed Dickinson, Callam Payne, Emelye O’Brien and Joe Bulmer.
