Karatedo Shitokai New Zealand

 

The Sugihara Cup is always a huge event, attracting a lot of local and international competitors alike. Shitokai New Zealand had three entries for the 2011 Sugihara Cup, Zara Wech (Junior and Senior Women Kata and Junior Women Kumite), Matthew Baird (Senior Men Kata) and Nicky Roberts (Senior Women Kata).

Like the Nationals last week, we enjoyed some success, with Nicky reigning supreme with Gold in the Senior Women Kata and Matthew Baird Winning a Bronze medal in Senior Men Kata.

Zara continued her steady improvement in both kata and kumite and her performance went up another notch from the previous week at the Nationals. Zara is in a most competitive division, with several very experienced National level competitors, especially in kumite, where Zara is often the lightest of all the competitors. Overall, Zara exhibited much courage, and improved both her kata and kumite performance.

Matthew Baird also competed very well in the Senior Men Kata, but had the misfortune to be on the same side of the draw as Chris Rahardja, and lost the mat final to Chris, who himself is looking quite superb at the moment (big field, the mat had 2 pools). That left him just one repecharge round, which he won easily, giving Matthew the Bronze medal.

Nicky Roberts proved her superiority in Senior Women Kata, winning all 5 rounds without dropping a flag. This is the 3rd tournament in a row where she has achieved this distinction (a very hard thing to achieve, particularly with 5 judges). The New Caledonian Open and the Nationals were the other two premier events.

Nicky is looking quite superb. Nicky's presentation, calling, power, speed and superb Kihon is great to see, and an inspiration to other aspiring Female Karateka. It is a tribute to her continual hard training, particularly as this is her first year at Polytechnic, where she is studying Sport and Recreation. As she said to me, it is hard fitting in all the training, plus lots of gym work with her study demands, but she has "unfinished business” in her karate.

These last two tournaments have set Nicky up well for the Commonwealths next week in Sydney, in which we are all hoping Nicky will not only do well for herself, but also for Shitokai New Zealand.