Philippines, Indonesia, Brunei taking part in SKAS tournament

KOTA KINABALU: Shotokan Karate Association of Sabah (SKAS) is organising its first open tournament which will be held at the International Technology and Commercial Centre (ITCC) Penampang, next month.

The Inaugural SKAS Open Tournament, scheduled for August 18-19, is expected to involve more than 300 exponents and officials, not just from Sabah and other Malaysian states but also from the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei.

"This is our inaugural tournament and we are very excited about it. We will be welcoming participants from all over Sabah and Malaysia but also from the Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei.

"And with the foreign participation that we will be receiving, we want everything to go smoothly which is why we have started preparations early," Simon Chia SKAS president said when contacted yesterday.

Among the objectives of the tournament is to scout for new local talents and to provide a high level platform for participants to test their karate skills with each other.

There will be various age groups for Kata and Kumite categories including for boys and girls respectively. And according to Simon, there will be plenty of medals and trophies to be won.

Towards this end, Simon said they were happy with the encouraging response to this inaugural event and that they hoped to see growing support in future editions.

"§We are a relatively new association but we feel we have been around long enough to finally start our own tournament.

"We are overwhelmed by the support we received and we hope it will be like this or even better when we organise this tournament again in future," he said.

For more information about the tournament or SKAS please contact its secretary-general Suhaida Mohd Nor (016-2207123) or Simon directly (013-8639707).