KUGB National Championships 2008

The KUGB National Championships are held annually and feature the most talented karateka in the KUGB. Any CUKC member can compete.

Competition Report

On Sunday at the KUGB National Championships, at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham, Roman Sztyler became the new KUGB kata champion! Roman stormed through the preliminary rounds with various Heian katas, never giving the judges a very hard decision, but it was with Unsu in the final where he really came into his own. His resolute and commanding performance gave him the edge over the other competitors and he earned the highest scores of the day, including 5.9 from a stunned Terry O'Neill.

This is a monumental achievement: there's no record of anyone from the club ever having won an individual kata medal at the Nationals before, so huge congratulations to Roman.

In men's team kumite Ian and Paul got through two rounds with just the two fighters, losing in the third round to the eventual winners. In that round Ian drew against JJ Bruce, who won silver in the individuals. Ian twice spotted JJ's big chudan mawashis, which had caused so much trouble for other competitors, and threatened constantly with his own famous gyaku zuki. The draw meant the team were left needing a win (by ippon in fact) in the remaining fight, against another England team member, Michael Davison, which unfortunately wasn't to be.

The squad of five who went (Roman, Ian, Paul, Gemma and Madeleine) is the biggest the club has sent to the Nationals in a long, long time, and there were many excellent individual performances that bode well for Varsity and for the Nationals next year. We hope that this precedent of making the Nationals a big competition for the club continues well into the future.