WKF Senior World Champs - updated

Day One - Friday 14th November

Womens team Kumite

New Zealand Vs Hungary 

Kylie was first up as an anchor for the team. She played her part well not allowing the opponent to score on her for 90% of the fight but allowed a sly kick to get through her guard towards the end of the fight.

Tamara was next up and needed a win to carry on. Tamara went out with a game plan to score on her opponent early and worked hard to do so. She did well but got tired towards the end of the fight and the Hungarian fighter managed to get ahead on points.

Rebecca was ready to fight, but having lost 2 fights already Hungary had won so the referee's called the match there.

Hungary won the next two rounds but missed on the medals.

Mens team Kumite

New Zealand Vs Morocco

Chris came up first with idea of a win in order to gain morale for the team. He didn't fire to the level he should do, but managed the win that was needed.

Brendon was up second and fought a fantastic fight against a very skilled and able fighter. He came back after some questionable refereeing had allowed his oppenent to gain the upper hand showing strong determination and a real will to win.

As both teams had only four fighters, Travis only needed a draw in order for us to take the match. Travis had probably the strongest fighter in the team who had some real speed but Travis dealt with it well gaining the needed draw and allowing New Zealand to win our first Mens Team Kumite round at a World Championships.

Day two - Friday 14th November

Mens Team Kumite

New Zealand Vs Tunisia

Once again Chris was up first with the task of getting an early win for the team. He looked to have the measure of his opponent and dominated the mat, but in the end could only manage a draw.

Travis had taken the second spot and with Chris's draw needed a win for the team to still have much of a chance. As with Chris's fight, Travis dominated the mat and the match, but unfortunately could only get the draw.

With only four players we were forced to leave a spot free and take an 8-0 loss so we left spot 3 empty as it is generally where the strongest fighter stays. The surprise on the face of the third fighter for Tunisia and the haste that the fourth fighter put into getting ready was amusing, but also gave us a bit of an edge going into the fourth match.

Leonard came out fourth. Given the 8-0 deficit we had from the lack of a fourth fighter he needed to win and win by a decent margin. He set about his task strongly, but not really firing his favoured techniques. By late in the match it was obvious Leonard was tiring and the Tunisian took advantage of it winning the match in the end.

With that New Zealand lost the match. Given how close the fights were we were very proud when Tunisia went on to get a Top 6 placing beating Algeria, Senegal and losing to Serbia by one point! (Serbia went on winning second place to an outstanding Turkish team) and then lost to Spain in the Repechage for third place.

Womens Kata

New Zealand Vs Hungary

Andrea performed a very strong Kanku Dai showing all the power and speed that she won the Oceania with. Her opponent performed a strong Jion that just managed to pull the judges around to her side. It was unfortunate, as the rest of the New Zealand team thought that Andrea deserved the win, but she did herself and the country proud as it was.

Mens Kata

Chris Rahardja became the first New Zealander to get past the first round of a wkf senior world championships since 1977 beating Estonia 5-0 performing Basai dai. He continued his good form winning over China in the second round 5-0 with Seipai, an excellent result for NZ that was just getting better. In the third round against the USA he decided to use Aanan and save Chatanyara for Diaz of Venisuala (2006 bronze medalist) winning in a close 3-2 match. Fourth round Diaz performed an outstanding Nipaipo taking the win over Chris and continuing on to the final getting past France (a bronze medalist in 2004) This gave Chris a shot at a medal through the repocharge system. In a must win match against Vietnam (Vietnam won the womens kata division) chris took the match 5-0 with Nipaipo heading into the bronze medal match against Min Dak of France. Chris performed the Goju version of Suparinpei after ruling out pinan godan as an option. Both tired France took the match 5-0 in a gutsy effort considering it was over 4 hours of competition and an hour of warming up to get to the bronze medal match. 

Kumite -70kg

Brendon Running fought well to win his first round. He was unable to repeat the results in the second round but showed promising form and improvement. At only 20 years old there are a few more world championships in him yet.