left to right – James Campbell Squad Coach, Charlie Dykes, Holly Williams, Bailey Westmacott, Ruby Wallace, Kyle Bruce, Charlotte Ettles, Ryan Hoggan and Gordon Williamson Squad Manager.
The squad flew out to Bergen, Norway on Wednesday 6th May and after a training session on Thursday afternoon the under 20’s went into the competition with good spirits and high hopes.
Both Ruby and Charlie were first up and both performed to the highest standard progressing to the quarter finals before losing out narrowly to good opponents. A mistake by the judges meant Ruby having to perform twice in the same round before being eliminated.
Charlotte in her first European championships lost out at the Sentei Kata round but again a fine performance from a young competitor.
Bailey, another first time competitor at European level, got through eliminations but lost out in the Semi Finals on points. Bailey continued his good fortune into the Kumite rounds by progressing to the quarterfinals. All in all some excellent performances by the juniors who are only a hairs breath away from meddling at these events.
Saturday was the turn of the seniors with Holly, Ryan and Kyle flying the flag for JKA Scotland. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be their day with all 3 loosing narrowly in the first round of Kata. The margins of their defeats however were so small it still showed impressive improvement from previous tournaments.
Kyle was our only competitor in the Kumite events and performed to his normal high standards winning his first fight with no issues. His second fight started well but he eventually lost narrowly after some some interesting calls by the officials. All in all despite not winning any medals all of our squad performed to the best of their abilities and no one let themselves or the country down.
Well done to you all and with small improvements we can and will win medals at this level.
