Leilani’s double gold success

Ashford’s Leilani Gabrielli won two gold medals when the Japanese Karate Association hosted a national Open shotokan karate championship at Crawley on Saturday.

Competitors from as far afield as Norway, Malta and Germany took part in the event and Leilani, a member of SESKA (South East Shotokan Karate Academy), which is based in Ashford, competed in the girls’ 10-12 years kihon ippon and mixed 10-12 years kata event.

In the kihon ippon, the early rounds were all tightly contested but Leilani managed to fight her way through to the final where another strong

performance earned her the gold medal.

The final of the kata involved the four competitors demonstrating the katas of their choice to the judges, who used a point scoring system to mark them and Leilani’s average of 18.1 saw her take the title by 0.3 of a mark.

This latest success means Leilani has won medals for the fifth time in succession at national tournaments and she will now look to achieve further success in her next grading session at the end of the month, when she will be trying to achieve her 4th kyu (purple and white belt). A sister and brother from Ashford Rugby Club have both earned selection for county junior teams.

Thirteen-year-old Sienna Farrance, a Year 9 pupil at North School, is captain of Ashford girls’ under-15 team and has now been selected for the Kent under-15s for the second successive year.

And her 12-year-old brother, Presley, a Year 8 pupil at Ashford School, plays for Ashford RFC under-13 boys and, in his first season out of mini rugby, has been called up for Kent team at that age group.

They live in Hamstreet and their mum, Lucy, said: “Kent only selected 30 girls from all the county’s clubs and five were from Ashford under-15s and there were only 60 boys selected for the boys’ under-13 team and six of those were from Ashford.

“All in all, it’s a massive achievement for the club.”