Karate snares gold, bronze

 Four members of the Papua New Guinea Karate train-on squad returned from the Thailand Open Karate-Do Championships recently having won a gold medal and a bronze.

The three-day championship was held at the Bangkok Huamark Indoor Sports Complex. 

The athletes were Crystal Mari, Nigel Bana, Cosmas Saliawali, and Leonard Gariadi.

Accompanying them were Willie Leslie and Carl Mari as coach and manager respectively.

The athletes were identified as possible kata athletes in preparation for the 2015 Pacific Games.

PNG competed against 18 teams in the tournament. 

There were a total of 400 athletes that participated.

The PNG men’s kata team  of Saliawali, Bana and Gariardi won gold by defeating Vietnam and Gariardi won bronze in the senior kumite 75-kilogrammes. 

Mari missed out on a bronze medal in the junior female kumite 53kg division but made the quarter-finals in the junior female kata division. 

The senior male individual kata division saw Saliawali and Bana reached the quarter-finals but missed out on a bronze.

In kumite, Saliawali was disqualified in the senior men’s 55kg division, while Bana made it through to the quarter-finals only to miss out on a bronze medal.  

The overall results saw Mari and Bana get fourth place in their kata and kumite events while Saliawali shared fourth place with Bana in senior male kata.

The PNG athletes ended the tournament with gold and bronze medals and finished seventh overall. (Carl) Mari thanked the government through the PNG Olympic Committee for funding the trip under the ‘Go for Gold’ programme.

He said there was still a lot of work to do to get the team ready for the Pacific Games.  

“There are a few more events that PNGKF intends to attend.

“The main ones are the Oceania Karate Championships in Suva, Fiji, and the World Karate Championships in Bern, Germany,” Mari said.

The team arrived via Singapore on Tuesday.