Regional Knockdown 2008 Results

This weekend saw the Rivermead Leisure centre in Reading host the BKK's annual regional knockdown tournament. There were around 40 fighters competing with a strong turn out including competitors from Ireland, Wales, Scotland and of course England.

Bethnal Green Karate club had four competitors fighting in the tournament, Darren in the open middleweight, Tim and Vic in the novice middleweight and Jay in the novice lightweight.

First onto the matt for the day was Jay who fought a strong and intense fight which forced a judges decision at the end of the second round. Tim had a bye in the first round which put him straight through to the semi-finals, Vic however had to take to the matt and earn his place there. Vic fought a good first fight mixing up strong lowkicks and punches, having gone the distance he earned the judges decision.

Unfortunately having fought a great fight in the first round Jay had also sustained a fracture to his thumb which forced him to retire. In the novice middleweight semi-finals Tim was first up who landed several damaging lowkicks to his opponents back leg early on in the first round earning a wazari. Having spotted the weakness Tim continued to target the back leg which soon paid off as a second wazari was awarded leading to ippon and a place in the final. Vic was next up in the second semi-final and again came out mixing his punches well with lowkicks. Vic however had entered the tournament with a leg injury which soon got hit by a strong lowkick from his opponent which immediately flared up and caused Vic to retire from the fight.

Having also received a bye in the first round Darren was next on the matt in the open middleweight semi-final against Wai Cheung. Both fighters started strong as expected, no less than a minute into the round Darren through a trademark jodan ushiro mawashi-geri however fell awkwardly as it made contact twisting his knee. Unfortunately he was unable to put any weight in the leg and was forced to retire from the fight.

As the tournament moved on to the finals Tim took to the matt in the final of the novice middleweight. Again Tim came out went to work on the legs throwing in plenty of lowkick combinations which seemed to be hurting his opponent and he looked to be on top at the end of the first round. As the second round begun Tim looked to end the fight again by working the lowkicks however his opponent was lifting his legs well and blocking the attacks. Tiredness was visibly setting in as Tim's pace slowed down towards the end of the second round. In the third round Tim didn't manage to hide his exhaustion very well and received several warnings for holding on to his opponent ultimately leading to the decision going against him at the end of the third round.

Many thanks to Noddy for coaching all our fighters on the day as well as a big thank you to all the other members of the club who came down to support our fighters making us certainly the noisiest club at the tournament!