WUKF World Championships – 2023 – English Shotokan Karate Association (ESKA)

ESKA’S elite squad took part in the WUKF World championships last week in Dundee, Scotland.

The squad did amazingly well, make sure you read on for the full details!

There were nearly 4000 competitors over the 4 days and thousands more spectating, so the stadium was a cauldron of noise, action, and excitement. In that charged atmosphere our people performed magnificently. Not one of them made a mistake under the pressure. Everyone gave a very good account of themselves against the best in the world… They really did, I’m not just saying that.

We took home 4 Silver medals and 1 Bronze medal, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. So many of our people were a hair’s breadth away from even greater success or adding to the total.

Juniors

Elena and Evelyn, who took Sliver and Bronze in the girls (11years old) kata, were so close to coming 1^st and 2^nd. Oliver was 0.1pts away from a bronze medal out of 61 competitors in the cadets 14-15 years kata. It was a very similar story for Rose, with 47 in her category.

Casey and Zak cruised through the first round of the boys (11 years old) kata, but just missed out on getting to the final, despite an excellent Empi (Zak) and Bassi Dai (Casey). Casey went on to compete in the Kumite on Sunday, where he performed well, winning his bout 4-1, and only losing to the eventual winner. He was later hand picked by the AMA head coach to take part in the team rotation. Alas, no medals though.

Nichiforos was leading by two points with only 8 seconds to go, when the referee scored a dubious nihon, causing a draw and extra time, which saw Nichiforos eventually lose. He went on to fight again in the teams, being handpicked over other fighters for the AMA 14-15 years team, unfortunately they didn’t get far, so no medals.

Max (former two times Silver medallist) made it through round 1 with a fantastic Empi, but didn’t quite get to the final this time in the boys 13 years kata. His brother Jack performed equally well and actually became a little bit famous when his kata was live streamed on YouTube!

Ladies Veterans

Speaking of fame, by now you will all have seen the picture of our very own Jazz on the BBC news feed!! Completely unsolicited, we knew nothing about it until Luke found it by accident and passed the link round. Jazz performed brilliantly coming 2^nd in the ladies vets kata with a fantastic Empi and Kanku Sho. Later she had a go at the ladies kumite and came second in that too!!! With two Silver medals, that makes Jazz the most successful squad member yet again.

Men’s Veterans

It’s fair to say that there has never been such a gathering of OAPs since before the GPO moved to online pensions. There were 29 in the 61 and over group (Vets E), and 31 in the 51-60 group (Vets D)! Unbelievable, where did they come from!??

Anyway Ian, Matt and myself performed better than expected, with all of us finishing in the top third of our categories. Matt came 7^th out of 31 in the Vets D kata, Ian came 9^th out of 29 in the Vets E kata and I just missed on the gold (by 0.1pts!) in the same category, so had to settle for silver.

Lastly, I can’t finish without mentioning Luke Santilli. He came all the way up to Dundee just to support us and become our unofficial photographer, what a great team player