BANGOR’s Harrison Stitt came away from the Southwest Irish Open Karate Championships with six medals at the weekend.
Together with five of his Mizukara Karate teammates, they won a total of nine silver and seven bronze medals at the recent event.
Harrison kicked off his morning with a silver trophy in the Cadets Champions individual kata (patterns) event. In the under age 18 kata, he secured another silver, then followed it up with a bronze in the age 13-14 kata event.
Harrison then partnered his sister Helena in the family kata and added another bronze. Then at the last minute with the pull-out of a teammate, he stepped up into the senior team kata event with world silver medallists, Amy Adair and Levi Kane, and together they secured silver in that category.
Harrison rounded of a superb day with a very hard fought and well-deserved bronze in the Cadets kumite (sparring).
Helena Stitt then went on to collect bronze in her individual kata event and silver in her step-up kata category. In the Cadets Champions kata, Ben Ritchie secured a bronze medal and teammate Kath Stevenson secured an excelled silver medal in the veterans individual kumite.
In addition to her team kata silver, Amy Adair added a host of medals to her collection. She won silver in the Champions Kumite, losing out to world champion Lily Sheeran in the final, added silver in the Shobu Ippon Kumite, silver in her individual kata and a final silver together with teammate Levi Kane in the Pairs kata event.
Levi rounded of the tally of medals for the squad with a bronze in the Champions Kata event and a bronze in the Shobu Ippon kumite.
Mizukara karate students are now looking forwards to the UKF Invitation tournament on Saturday, April 18 in Donegal and the Karate Northern Ireland Open Championships which are taking place in Belfast on Saturday, April 25.
