 The small squad of 5 travelled to Nottingham on Saturday 25th to compete in the AMA International
Championships. Callum Alboni, at only 6 years old, was really there to experience the occasion and would have a tough time to medal as his categories were all aged U10 years, but the other four, Jodie Miles, Sophie Roberts, Aimee Sell and Alex
Sell are all extremely talented and very experienced and are always genuine medal contenders which ever tournament they attend. The only one not to medal on this occasion was Alex whilst the other 3 secured 2 Golds and 2 Silvers between them.
The Kata events were held fist on the Saturday with the Kumite events for the squad on Sunday, save for little Callum who had both his events on Saturday.
Aimee had won the U10 yrs Kata event last year and now she had stepped up to the Girls 10-11yrs 3rd-1st Kyu category. There was also a 10-11yrs Dan Grade category which meant Aimee didn’t compete against some
of her usual rivals this time. Nonetheless she came up against some good opponents, especially from the Iranian squad who were very sharp. Aimee was the first competitor up and being red had to perform first. She performed Bassai-Dai Kata against a good Iranian girl and won the
decision 2 flags to 1. Her next round saw her perform Seienchin and this time she won convincingly 3-0. The next round was the final and Aimee chose to perform Annan whilst her Iranian opponent (another one) performed Unsu. Aimee secured gold with a 2 flags to 1 victory to set
the ball rolling and remain undefeated at this tournament.
Little Callum was up next competing in the Boys U10yrs category. Callum performed Pinan Nidan to good effect in his opening round and secured a 2 flags to 1 win. The next round saw Callum lose out as he crossed his Shodan and Nidan
Katas to receive a no-score. Never mind, Callum’s eager to compete and this is all a learning exercise for him.
The Girls 12-13yrs Dan Grade category saw Jodie called into action. Jodie got off to good start winning her opening round by scoring 2 flags to 1 with her Bassai-Dai Kata. Her next round was more assured as she took a 3-0 win for
her Nipaipo Kata. The semi-final saw Jodie perform a flawless Seipai Kata whilst her AMA opponent buckled under the pressure and forgot her Kata giving Jodie the win. Now in the final, Jodie chose to perform her newest Kata, Annan but although she performed it well, she lost
out to a very strong Chatanyara Kushunku and had to settle for a well deserved Silver.
Sophie up next in the Girls 14-15yrs 3rd-1st Kyu category and she opened her account with yet another 2-1 win for Bassai-Dai in the opening round. Sophie then won her semi-final encounter taking a 2 flags to 1
decision for her Seipai. The final saw Sophie make no mistakes as she performed a great Unshu to wow the judges and secure a 3-0 win and the squads second gold of the day.
Alex was our last Kata representative competing in the Boys 14-15yrs Dan Grade event. Alex started in good form winning with his opening Bassai-Dai Kata 3-0. The next round saw a shock decision go against him 2-1 as his Seienchin
Kata was beaten a Bassai-Dai kata. His conqueror went on to win the event incidentally leaving Alex with a chance of a bronze in the repechage playoffs. Alex performed Nipaipo in his first repechage round and won 2-1 leaving him one more round for bronze. In that round, Alex
performed an excellent Chatanyara Kushank Kata and once again a shock decision didn’t go his way as he lost out 2-1 leaving Alex and the rest of us somewhat bewildered.
Little Callum was finally called back into action late in the evening as he was competing in the Boys U10yrs Kumite category. This was a large category which had to be split into two pools with Callum being in pool B. Callum was finally
called to the mat only to receive a first round bye. The next round saw Callum lose out 7-0 as he just could score against his much older opponent. Callum did well to cope with the big occasion and in another 3 years times he’ll still be in this category but oh so much better
for all the experience his gaining now.
And so it was off to the hotel to muse over the days events and rejuvenate for the next days Kumite events. Did have a nice meal and a couple of drinks in the bar afterwards leaving the kids all got together to ‘socialise’ on their own
for a while. Hope they didn’t make too much noise.
Sunday saw everyone up fresh and early and eager to get to stuck into the Kumite events. The team events were organised first and we had Jodie and Sophie in action as a two-person team. There were a lot of starts and
re-starts here as they were allowed to adopt another team member to make a three-person team but then were told they couldn’t and had to rewind back to the start again. When the ‘real’ start got underway, it was Sophie in action first. Sophie won her round 11-3 opening up a
clear 8 point gap to end the round early. Next up Jodie made sure she had done enough to guarantee the win with a 5-4 victory. But Jodie was then called back to the mat after some points re-jigging she didn’t win but the team still won and I wasn’t the only one who was
confused. The next opponents for the girls were the team from Iran. Sophie once again started first but unlike her previous round she could only manage a 3-3 draw. Jodie got the chance to fight next but lost out 3-1 in the end to end the girls’ medal hopes.
Jodie jumped straight from the team event into her individual event, the Girls 13-15yrs U50kg category. Jodie had a tough first round in this event and was up against a good opponent who out-pointed Jodie to take an 8-4 victory.
Jodie did make the repechage rounds as her opponent went on to make the finals. Jodie took her opening repechage round to sudden death as the scores were level 4-4 at the end of the fight. With the first one to score within 1 minute of extra time, Jodie made no mistakes as she
had a 2-point technique scored for her leaving her the chance to gain a bronze in the next round. Jodie once again ended the fight with the scores at 4-4 leaving another sudden death extra-time round to commence. This time Jodie was on the losing end as a simultaneous punch was
scored in her opponents favour leaving Jodie empty handed in this event.
The Girls 13-15yrs Over 55kg category had Sophie in action and she started off brightly with a 8-4 win. Her next round win was even more impressive securing an 8 point gap before the end with the scores at 9-1. Round 3 and things
became a lot closer but Sophie’s speed and determination shone through as she edged a close 4-3 win. The semi-final round saw another close encounter but once again she edged it 2-1 in her favour to make the final and guarantee a medal. The final was once again close with
Sophie going behind before levelling it up, then once again drop behind before levelling things again. With only a few seconds left on the clock, Sophie once again dropped behind but there wasn’t enough time for her to get the point back and it finished 3-2 with Sophie settling
for Silver this time claiming her second trophy of the tournament.
Our last squad member to compete was Alex completing in the Boys 13-15yrs U55kg event. This was the first time he’d fought at this tournament and had high hopes of medalling but these were soon dashed as he lost out in his opening
round. Alex was drawn against an Iran kid, obviously the top end of 15 at least. A cagey start saw both competitors weighing each other up before Alex was suddenly caught with a foot slapping Ura Mawashigeri kick that really shouldn’t have been scored as it left nice footprint
on his face. This really changed the match as Alex had to take more risks to reduce the deficit and was caught with the same move a little later on. Alex’s opponent then scored the final 2 points against him as he grabbed Alex, Alex turned and expected ‘Yame’ from the ref and
instead lost 2 points! Rhys Davies from Vale Karate went on to beat the Iranian in the next round in a close match but even though we knew it would knock Alex out of repechage, we were all shouting for Rhys to win, and he did which led to a huge cheer from the partisan crowd.
So all in all the squad came home with 2 Golds and 2 Silvers. We may not have the biggest squads, but we do have a very strong nucleus with kids at the very top of the tree. Can’t always guarantee we get the right decisions but they never
stop trying and never give up.
NOTE: Please click on any photo in the right-hand margin to ENLARGE.
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