Leeds Karate Academy, who have a full-time Dojo at their Farsley base, topped the medals table at the JKS National English Open Championships in Nottingham.
The squad brought home 16 golds, four silvers and seven bronzes, despite the event having over 900 entries and the event lasting over 11 hours.
The highlight of the day for Leeds were the senior men’s team finals, where their B team of Tom Little, Callam Payne and Joe Bulmer, who had earlier beaten JKS Scotland, secured bronze by defeating London-based TSKUK B.
Leeds’ A team (Stephen Brown, James Brown and Hayden Steele) beat TSKUK A for gold.
Ashley Scott won the senior ladies’ kata and kumite to become female grand champion, and helped Bradford schoolgirl Emelye O’Brien and Laura Mackintosh to the senior ladies’ team kumite title.
O’Brien also won the girls’ kumite, and Bulmer and Farsley schoolboy Joe Hird were grand champions too.
Bulmer took the brown belt kata and kumite events, and Hird the boys’ brown belt kata and kumite.
Callam Payne lifted the cadet male kumite division, Oliver Deane the boys’ 14-15 kumite and David Lister the boys’ 11-13 kumite.
Joining Callam on the rostrum were Tom Mitchell with the silver and James Brown with the bronze.
Oliver, David and Nathan Wyspianski also took the team 12-15 years' title.
Joe also added a third gold along with Isaac Mitchell and Alex Lenton in the team kumite nine to 11 years, while Alex also took a gold in the eight to ten years kyu grade kumite. Isaac took silver in the brown belt kumite.
Yuan Xu, on his first competitive outing for Leeds Karate Academy, won the kyu grades peewee kata.
Other silver medals were taken by Chevy Howarth in the five to seven years kumite and the girls' team of Emelye O’Brien, Kate Lister and Laura Mackintosh.
Bronze medals went to Daniel Suttill, Alice Whittington, Jake Carr and Damien Hobbin in their kumite events.
Anybody interested in starting karate can contact Nick Heald on 07747 607283, email n_heald@hotmail.com or see the club web site at www.lka.org.uk
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