ON Saturday 5th May, Barry Kyokushin hosted the second Welsh IKO Open Knockdown Championships in Barry.

The tournament took place at the Colcot Sports centre and saw 120+ students attend from over the UK.

Barry Kyokushin, who are celebrating their 40th anniversary this May, entered 29 students from their club into the Welsh Championships.

The day started with a new edition to UK tournaments, a Synchronised Kata (pattern) section, which Barry had two teams entered into.

Ben Bolanos, Justine Bolanos and Leanne Lirio made up Barry Team 1 and Kelly Shi, James Shi and Andrei Espiritu made up Barry Team 2.

They competed against 3 other teams. Barry team 1 took gold in this event and Barry team 2 took silver, so it was a great start to the day for Barry.

Following on from that were Individual Katas (Pattern). There were 10 kata categories with 65 competitors, and Barry had 15 competitors throughout. Barry Kyokushin took 15 Trophies from the 10 categories, seven of those were 1st places: K1 1st place Nathan Tudor (9thk kyu) 2nd place Harri Evans. (9th Kyu), K3 1st Place Justine Bolanos (3rd Kyu), K4 1st place Cian Willmot (4th Kyu) 3rd place Sebastian Barczewski (5th Kyu), K5 1st place Ben Bolanos (3rd Kyu) 2nd place Jay Haymen (9th Kyu), K6 1st pace Leanne Lirio (3rd Kyu) 2nd place Kelly Shi (4th Kyu), K7 3rd place Yusef Hassan (8th Kyu), K8 1st Place Ellie Davies (9th Kyu) 2nd place Kim Norris (8th kyu).

Assistant instructor Rhian Evans (1st Kyu) competed in K10 and took our final 1st Place in Kata, also making this her 8th consecutive Kata title in six years.

There were 2 Kumite categories; semi contact and full contact.

In the semi contact, Ben Bolanos, Justine Bolanos and Kelly Shi were entered,

Ben Bolanos took second place in his category, Justine Bolanos also took a second place in her category, however; Kelly Shi went the distance and took a much deserved 1st Place,

Then came the Junior Knockdown where we saw Angelina Perks take a first place, in her first ever tournament. Katie Cookson also making her debut in a major national tournament taking third place.

Following, Leanne Lirio took 1st place, fighting through many tough rounds to lift the title in her category. Justine Bolanos was very unlucky to miss out on a top spot but took a much deserved second place and her brother Ben Bolanos went through 6 rounds of touch fighting only to come against a much taller opponent in the final and found it difficult to topple him, had to settle for a very respectful second place.

Then the adult knockdown (Full contact) rounds were held. Barry had three competitors in the adult Knockdown.

Gareth Dutton 4th Kyu (32) who entered the Men’s heavyweight along with fellow club member, Callum Crocker 9th Kyu (28).

Gareth, who was making his last appearance in the Novice category took to the mat against a member of Kudo Wales.

Gareth came in with a wave of hard body punches and took an early win. This was followed by Callum who had a bye in the first round and found himself in his first ever bought with his club member, Gareth. The fight went the distance and Callum held a firm ground, but Gareth took the win by judge’s decision.

After a few other competitors had been, Callum was up again and fighting for a third place, Callum’s competitor was from the world-renowned Tokei club in London, a club well known for exceptional fighters. Callum started strong and put the more experienced fighter on edge, but Callum, fatigued by his earlier round found it hard to keep pace and his more experienced fighter came back hard.

Callum went the full three minutes and went to a judge’s decision and it went the way of his opponent.

Gareth then took up his spot for the final and once again found himself up against a tough Tokei fighter. Early in the round Gareth took an accidental kick to the groin which made him weary of his opponent. The fight was evenly matched until Gareth damaged his hand, with only 40 seconds to go, Gareth decided to fight on but the pain was too much and in the last 20 seconds of the match Gareth stopped and allowed his opponent to take the win and Gareth took 2nd Place.

Last up for the day was our 3rd Knockdown competitor, Novice lightweight Female, Claire Norman 7th Kyu (35).

This was Claire’s first ever knockdown fight, Claire trained hard for this fight and, having been out of training for a while, came back 1 month prior to the tournament and began training for it.

Claire, came up against a more experienced fighter from the north. With adrenaline surging, Claire dominated her opponent and gave her no room to throw anything back her way.

Claire went the full three minutes and took the win by judge’s decision, crowing her champion.

Club chief instructor Sensei Phill said “This is a phenomenal achievement for us, we took 12 champions from this tournament out of 25 placing students, and, marking our 40th anniversary, I couldn’t be prouder.

"One of my students, Leanne Lirio came away a triple champion, taking 1st in Synchronized Kata, in Individual Kata, and kumite. This tournament and our huge milestone of 40 years running making us the longest running karate club in the Vale of Glamorgan, couldn’t have been achieved without my hard working and dedicated students who support all we do here in Barry. I’m very proud”

After the tournament, the club partied into the night at the Barry Masonic hall where they held a Sayonara party and 40th anniversary party, free to competitors and friends of Barry Kyokushin.

Barry Kyokushin now train out of Barry YMCA. Training nights are Monday through to Friday but for more info go to www.bkkc.co.uk or find them on Facebook @barrykarate