25 April 2008

Last weekend Ards karate brothers Sam and Kevin Lewis kept their competition preparation right on target for next month’s WUKO European Championships in Belgium.

At the Golden Dragon International karate tournament in Ardee, with opposition from across the UK, Ireland and Europe the Ards men claimed three titles.

In the pairs kata event they were runaway winners, with an excellent performance of Passai.

They then added a second gold by winning the team event with the help of substitute Neil Bailie in the forced absence of coach David Brashaw.

The medals did not stop there as Sam went on to win his age group individual kata and Kevin claiming bronze in his equivalent event, narrowly losing out to the eventual winner from the more dynamic Shotokan style in the semi-final.

Coach Brashaw was delighted with the day’s results. “This was a great result for Kevin and Sam against such a strong international field. We have another run-out in the next few weeks prior to final fine tuning for the Europeans in Belgium. In addition to this fantastic result we have also just had four young people selected to represent Northern Ireland at the Junior World Championships scheduled to take place in Venice this October, one of which being Sarah Brashaw from Newtownards. This is especially pleasing as she so narrowly missed out two years ago to make the World Championships. With that disappointment and her subsequent training I am confident she will be very determined to do well in Venice this October.”