The 10th WUKF World Championships took place in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA from 2 to 7 July 2022. Representing part of the Great Britain team was Kent Sports’ own Sports Scholar Luke Yates. Luke’s competition began in the individual Kata and Kumite events, and despite not making it to the second round of these events Luke was very pleased with how he performed against such strong competition. However, those events certainly helped warm Luke up for the team fighting category alongside two other GB teammates.
For those of you that don’t know, team fighting involves 3 fighters from both countries fighting in 3 separate fights, the winning country needs to accumulate at least 2 wins out of the 3 fights to progress to the next round. The event got off to a great start with Great Britain winning the first two rounds, placing them into the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, GB found themselves 1 win each against Poland and it was Luke Yates coming through an intense battle to secure the team win and guarantee a bronze medal from a semifinal placing. Two days later Luke and his teammates built on their success and defeated France to reach the final and at least a silver medal.
About the final Luke told Kent Sport: “I led the team as the first fighter to face the Romanians, unfortunately, I failed to secure a win in the first fight despite putting in one of my best fighting performances. That left it to our second fighter to win in the second fight to keep us in with a chance. However, after a tough battle, he lost and Great Britain was then pronounced the WUKF World Shobu Sanbon male seniors team silver medalists.”
What a fantastic achievement. The Kent sports scholarship scheme has always been represented well by Karate Scholars, and in Luke Yates, this rich history continues.
Luke Yates – Focused. 2)
Article main image caption: Great Britain silver medalists – Luke 3rd from left.