South Yorkshire Open 2013

The day started with pairs kata with Teerth and Charan (Team Dhesi), Amrit and Josh (Team Amrit) and Oliver and Charlotte (Team Pinder), taking to the mat in a pool that had no weak pairs. Each pair performed well, though were all on the wrong end of five flags to nil decisions.
The same score was seen by Charan and Josh in their respective individual events as they went out in the opening round. Charlotte was to have a similar result as she was disqualified following a brain malfunction with her mouth saying one kata and her body doing a different one!
   Teerth and Oliver were in the same event and despite having first round byes were knocked out at the quarter final stage by the eventually beaten finalist and winner respectively. However, both performed well with Teerth splitting the decision 4-1 and Oliver 3-2.
Fortunately Amrit was on form and he worked though his group with four successive five-nil results as he took the clubs first medal of the day, a well-earned gold.

After having some tough draws in the pairs and individual rounds the final kata event was the teams with Charlotte, Teerth and Oliver (Team Dearing)  in one team and Amrit, Charan and Josh (Team Hartery) forming a second. The teams used a delayed start to get some much needed practice in and this paid dividends as Team Hartery won their quarter final 4-1 and Team Dearing proceeded to the semi-final with a 5-0 victory. However, both teams were then against very experienced trios with Team Hartery going out 5-0 to Hull and East Riding and Team Dearing having an identical result exiting to Sale Dojo who were the eventual winners.



The kumite soon followed and first up was Charan in a small pool of competitors. Charan performed well and was unlucky not to score in the semi-final though the kick was adjudged to have touched leaving the round at nil-nil though Charan had done enough taking the flags 5-0. The final was a much tougher encounter coming up against an experienced competitor who quickly scored three quick fire head kicks to take the final 9-0 leaving Charan will a well-earned silver.

Amrit was in a typically large category and was to fall foul of the draw as he exited in the first round, a scenario that was to be repeated by Charlotte who went out 9-0, Teerth on the wrong end of a 3-1 score and Oliver who went out 3-0. All were disappointed with their performances though they all gave their best performances and were a little unlucky with both the draw and seeing attacks not score. However, in each case they were fighting in categories at the highest level, with older competitors and particularly for the boys with much bigger opponents.

Having seen the kumite yield few medals Josh Hartery was next up. His quarter final saw a nil-nil finish though like Charan earlier he had put in the effort which rewarded him with a 3-2 flags victory. Josh then had a tough semi-final against a very experienced competitor though Josh came from behind to win late in the round 6-5. The final was much easier as Josh took control and dispatched his opponent 9-0 in forty seconds to take gold.



Joe Munro was the last individual kumite competitor of the day. Joe started in the men’s open weight category with a 9-0 win before losing out 1-0 in a hard fought round. Joe then simultaneously competed in the 16-17 year old 75KG+ and under 75KG categories. He had a tough draw in the 75KG section though held on for a draw though he was on the wrong end of a 5-0 flags result. This bout was sandwiched between the first and quarter-final rounds at under 75KG. Joe opened with a 5-1 victory before edging his next round 1-0 as he felt the strain of back to back fights. Having had a break Joe was far too strong for his semi-final opponent with an 8-0 win to set up a final encounter. Joe was to fall just short in an even contest as he went down 4-3 to take silver medal.



The last event of the day was the boys 11 to 13 team kumite. Against the draw went against the team of Josh, Teerth and Oliver as they had to compete in around before the remainder of the pool came in at the quarter-final stage. The boys were drawn against a strong Mujushin team. Oliver was first up and despite going down to two early kicks pulled the score back to 6-3. Unfortunately late kicks didn’t score as the team lost their first round. Next up was Teerth in an even match that saw the bout drawn 0-0 leaving Josh needing to win by 4 to take the team into the next round. Josh was on top throughout the round getting two kicks in to take a 6-0 lead though he was unable to hold on as his opponent pulled three points back late in the fight.
With both teams having scored nine points Oliver took to the mats once again against his earlier opponent. Unfortunately, the result was the same with Oliver going down 6-3 despite a number of late attempts to pull the bout back. The result saw the boys exit the competition.
Overall every competitor came away with a medal with two team bronze medals, two individual silvers and two individual gold medals.

Report by Chris Dearing

A big thank you to all who attended, and particularly to parents and scorekeepers who make these days possible.

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