Best wishes to the Australian team competing at the ITF World Championships in Wellington, New Zealand.
Australian team members from USMA, coached by Sabum Spiridon Cariotis, are:
- Sabum Michael Nguyen
- Sabum Tony Nguyen
- Vishnu Sankar
- Carysse Shean
- Krista Wise
- Stefan Kumar
- Sebastian Mackay
- Sanja Stapar
Updates will be posted when available and you can check results at the ITF NZ World Championship Website. There is also live video of some events.
DAY 1.
Sanja Stapar and Stephan Kumar competed in sparring on day 1. Sanja was the first sparring match of the tournament, in her first international event. She performed really well and was unlucky not to proceed to the next round. Stephan also fought well, and was most disappointed not to progress further. Sebastian Mackay competing in 1st Dan patterns in his first international event made it through to the second round, which is a great achievement. Well done to all our USMA competitors!
Congratulations to other Australian team juniors – Samantha Faddoul won bronze in sparring, Trent Hayden won bronze in special techniques and Indija Anderson and Bianca Bin won medals in patterns and special techniques.
DAY 2
Day 2 was a mixed day – our sparring competitors performed really well, but sadly were not rewarded with any silverware. Sabum Michael Nguyen was awesome, winning two rounds convincingly and falling just short of the medal rounds. Carysse Shean also won one round against Argentina before losing to Italy. Krista Wise fought really well and was unlucky to lose, and Vishnu Sankar also lost a close match. USMA is very proud of all its competitors and their standard of performance reflected all the hard work put in at black belt training with Sabum Cariotis.
Other Australian team members also had mixed luck in sparring and patterns. Ashley Thornton won a round of patterns, but unfortunately did not get through to the medal rounds. Our congratulations to Sabum Charles Van Beelan, who won a bronze medal in Senior Powerbreaking. Great work, Mr Van Beelan!!
DAY 3 – rest day for competitors
DAY 4 and 5
The last two days of competition were team events. Congratulations to the Junior Girls for their excellent work, and to Sabum Michael and the Senior Male Power team who also won bronze in their event.