Vale players' success at world karate event (From Barry And District News)

Vale players' success at world karate event

VALE Karate based at Barry Leisure Centre was extremely proud to have two of its coaches selected to represent Great Britain at The World Universities Karate Championships, which took place in Belgrade on the weekend of July 10 and 11.

Billy Seagrim 20, recently unveiled as one of seven new Welsh sports stars to be granted Elite Cymru funding in 2004 is officially the under-21 world number five heavyweight karate athlete.

Gareth Reynolds 22, was Welsh Openweight Champion in 2001 and 2002 but has been struggling with a back injury for the last couple of years. Both are assistant coaches of the highly successful Vale Karate Junior squad and study at Trefforest and Swansea respectively.

They have both been members of The Welsh National Squad for several years but were representing Great Britain for the first time.

Since the home nations are now independent for European, Commonwealth and World Championships and with karate still on the fringes of Olympic inclusion, this was a rare occasion of a British team being assembled with England's coach and assistant coach Ticky Donovan OBE and Wayne Otto OBE given the task.

Many of the world's top karate squad's are focussed much more strongly on the university aspect of karate than we in Great Britain with the standard as a result world class, with many European and World Champions present.

Billy was Britain's representative in the over-80kg category, with Gareth at the opposite end of the weight spectrum in the under-60kg section. Billy was also selected as one of the five-man British team. Billy was in fact first man up, winning both his bouts in Britain's wins over Poland and Bulgaria. Great Britain then came up against the strong French team with the final result being two wins each. The total points scored was tallied with Britain being edged out 17-16! France were then beaten by Japan who went on to beat Bosnia in the final.

Billy beat the home favourite from Serbia 9-1 in the first round of the heavyweight individual event only to narrowly lose his second round match to the Hungarian champion he had defeated in the team event!

Gareth was on top form, beating the strong Spanish champion in his first fight, following that up with a fine win over Hungary's representative. In sight of a medal he came up against the favourite from Russia.

Gareth was defeated by the Russian who went on to reach the final (eventually winning gold) to bring Gareth back into the repechage match to find the bronze medallist.

He didn't disappoint beating a Serbian 9-1 winning Britain's third medal of the championships.

Both Billy and Gareth have recently been announced as among the 32 competitors from around Britain and Europe of the third 10K Karate Clash which takes place in September and will be screened on Sky Sports.

For further info on Vale Karate, Wales' most successful karate club: visit www.valekarate.com or contact secretary Cathy Copeland at vale@valekarate.com