Some of east Auckland’s top karate practitioners are ready to showcase their fighting spirit on the international stage.
A team from the local Highland Park dojo is heading to Australia to compete in the GKR Karate World Cup Tournament from August 9-11.
Dojo manager Nicola de Bruin says the competition staged at Sydney’s Olympic Park will feature more than 1400 competitors from England, Australia and New Zealand vying for medal placements in their divisions which includes individual Kata, Kumite (sparring) and Team events.
The Highland Park team has been training hard and competing in local tournaments to prepare to represent New Zealand as well as their dojo.
“The students competing at the World Cup range in age from six to in their 60s,” de Bruin says.
“They’ve trained specifically for this event for the last 12 months, meeting weekly for tournament-specific training including drilling sparring techniques and their grade Katas in the hopes of winning medals to bring back to New Zealand.
“The last tournament of this calibre for our club was held in England pre-Covid in 2019, so everyone is super excited to represent New Zealand again at an international event.
“Each competitor has entered regular tournaments throughout New Zealand for the last year and had to place in the top three at least once to be eligible to enter the World Cup.”
De Bruin says the competition in Sydney will be “extremely tough”.
Each competitor will face on average about 60 people in their individual divisions, which range from yellow-belt divisions all the way up to the open Black-Belt divisions.
“In addition to the individual events, we have 10 Senior male, 10 Junior males, 10 Senior females and 10 junior females who were hand-picked by our senior instructors to represent New Zealand in the Team Kumite (fighting) event.
“Thirteen of these students come from our Highland Park dojo.
“These are some of GKR New Zealand’s best fighters and will face the top fighters from Australia and the UK in the hope of bringing home a medal.
“We are extremely excited to watch our students give it their all and test their skills at such a level.”
