The ama’s in Nottingham was a very big tournament of a high standard. We took a senior team from the Budokan, Dean Draper, Sion Rees, Erhar , Andrew Gronow and Gurkan Bulbul, with Rhys Jones from the BKA Wales, and Shaun Rees of Ogwr karate.
The first to fight was Shaun Rees who had a bronze in the U16’s, He did so well. Then we had the men’s team event and first round we had the Lido a interesting draw which we lost, we drew 1 fight each and a draw fight, then counted the points to make them the winners. Next we had the men’s individuals. Sion, Andrew and Gurkan all did very well but against very good opponents they lost first round. Next up were Dean, Erhar and Rhys. Dean warmed up as the competition progressed, he finished with a Bronze in his weight group. Erhar was next, he had a brilliant first fight winning 8-0, the following round he drew 3-3, then lost in sudden death. Rhys was next but he lost after putting up a good fight. Dean was next to fight in the open weight. He was awsum he hit brilliant form as the opposition got better so did he ! Out of his 5 fights he drew 4 of the Iranian national team, beating all but the last one to give him a bronze. Only thing I can say apart from his outstanding performance was the appalling attitude of all the Iranians, with regard to their conduct on the tatami and after loosing their fights.
Throughout the day in all the categories. The Iranian team members, men, women and children all faked injury and complained after every decision that went against them. They should have been thrown out of the competition, and this was the opinion of the majority of the coaches, in all of the categories.
WELL DONE TO ALL OF THE FIGHTERS