Kyokushin World Cup
I was lucky enough to view the 2006 Karate World Cup - held at the Sydney Entertainment Centre - over the weekend. There were some exceptionally talented karateka representing their countries.
Below are some photographs of various competitors:
One of the highlights for me was the knock out of Jim Kelly by Dean Treloar (seen in picture #4 above). Around about 45 seconds into the fight, Kelly appeared to look off into the crowd and grin, and then said hello to the canvas courtesy of the lightning fast left foot of Treloar.
Kelly was out for a tense five minutes or so before being assisted off on a stretcher. Happily though, he was cleared by the doctor and later on, came back to acknowledge the crowd who in turn acknowledged him.
Another highlight was Sharon Boyle’s ability to dominate her opening opponent, Anoko Szabo, despite seemingly moving backwards for most of the bout.
Probably the greatest highlight of the day though was the fact that there was a competitor called Judas. Judas Ngobeni was competing for South Africa and it really made my day seeing the name being used in contemporary society.
We were only there for the Saturday - and saw some very impressive competitors, amongst those whom I enjoyed watching the most were :
- Jim Sklavos - Australia
- Kanat Rakhimov - Kazakhstan
- Jason Baltov - Australia
- Margaret Le - Australia
- Sharon Boyle - Australia
- Mariya Gridneva - Kazakhstan
- Luke Trotz - Australia
- Gedelia Rubenstein - Australia
- Zwelile Thwala - Swaziland
- Mandala Simelane - Swaziland
- André Nakad - Lebanon
- Zsombor Magosi - Hungary (I think)
- Bulat Nurabyev - Kazakhstan
… so It was mainly three countries that I enjoyed watching it would seem - Australia, Swaziland and Kazakhstan.
One thing did disappoint me - of all the Kazakh competitors, none of them looked a thing like Borat. Amusingly though, one, Bulat Nurabyev did sound a little bit like Borat Sagdiyev (though I am not so sure that I would wish to make him aware of my thoughts on this).
I don’t think that I will ever be able to watch Borat’s documentaries any more - I think that he may be an impostor.
I will definitely be looking forward to the Karate World Cup next time it is hosted in Australia though.
Technorati Tags: Kyokushin, Karate World Cup, Borat, Karate, Australia, Kazakhstan, Swaziland, Judas
