Martial arts Teia takes top fighter award on good Venice trip for EPiC
THE EPiC martial arts team enjoyed great success in the season-opening Golden Glove fixture in Venice.
A team of nine students from the Portishead-based martial arts and fitness centre travelled to the Italian city, namely Sean MacDonald, Teia Doyle, Ellie Doyle, Harvey Pollard, Rhiannon Bater, Ryan Chapman, Connor Chapman, Finlay Cozens and Matt Roberts. The coaching team was Roberts and Rakan Sabbah.
Teia started the weekend off with a cracking opening performance to secure a gold in her -37kg light continuous division in the young cadets category for ten to 12 years.
Through great movement and slick lead hand attacking she went on to secure further golds on day two in her YC -28kg PF, YC -32kg PF and YC -37kg PF divisions. She stepped up to fight in the older cadets -32kg PF division and battled her way to the final but lost narrowly to take a silver. Her performances and results earned her the ‘fighter of the weekend’ accolade.
Connor and his younger brother Ryan stepped on to Italian mats for the first time and adapted very well. With Ryan spending his first season in the young cadets ranks this year, it was always going to be a tough task after winning several major accolades in the Under-9s last year (including British Champs and Irish Open) but he settled well early on with two crushing displays to ‘clear’ his opening opponents, before coming up against a strong British fighter and taking a bronze. He added another bronze to his tally on day two to come away on the podium.
Connor took his light continuous division apart, stopping both of his opponents with inspiring athleticism and brute accuracy. A fantastic sweep in the final summarised his performance well as he dismantled his opponent to take gold in the YC -47kg LC. He also added a bronze on day two.
Harvey started his 2020 season knowing this would be one of his final competitions in the Under-9s as he will be ten shortly, so he stepped up to his new young cadets categories, too.
Day one was a tough day but he started day two with some strong performances against a solid Russian opponent in the U9 -29kg LC division but came up against an even stronger fighter in the final. He was moving well and scoring solid combinations before a controversial refereeing call meant he lost points and couldn’t quite muster up the technique to turn it around in the final 30 seconds, taking silver.
He came back strong in his U9 -27kg PF category and weaved his way through the rounds with some memorable victories and won the final with flare to record a seasonopening gold.
Rhiannon started the year by battling back against a tough opponent and world champion. She was drawn against her twice on a tough weekend and lost to her by one point in her final bout of the weekend in the semi-finals of her older cadets -65kg PF category to secure a bronze. She moved much better and countered a very awkward leg (the other girl was a strong kicker) very effectively. She pulled out an aggressive front-foot style in her light continuous division, which saw her progress to the semi-finals before falling to the division winner. She claimed a bronze in all three of her categories.
Finlay stepped on to the mats on day one just a couple of hours after touching down in Italy but got straight to work, powering through his first two opponents in style.
He was aggressive and ruthless in his style and landed some solid combinations before narrowly losing in the final in a great match. Fin, nicknamed ‘flingo,’ also waded straight into his opponent in round one of his older cadets -63kg LC category, which epitomises his maturing mentality and at times he moved effortlessly across the tatami, which goes to show his intelligence with distance. He went on to take a bronze to add to his earlier silver.
Ellie took on some tough divisions in the older cadets -47kg weights for both styles. She had some tough calls go against her but ultimately couldn’t find form in the points fighting divisions but she did better in the -47kg LC category.
She moved smoothly and attacked off of the line, which made it difficult for her opponents to counter. She was leading her semifinal but slipped to a couple of good combinations by her opponent, who was displaying quality kicking. She fell short by just two points, taking home a bronze medal.
Sean battled against some quality opponents in his earlier rounds, schooling them with slick movement and gaining great distance with his lead leg kicks.
Scoring with long blitzes and following his shots up well, he went through to the semi-finals. He unfortunately didn’t adapt quickly enough to an awkward-kicking Italian, who was 5-0 up before Sean started to work him out, which was too late by then.
Sean ended up fighting against the same fighter again in his next division. He fought him differently and was holding a quality 1-0 lead until his opponent was scored a two-point technique when Sean had blocked well, but he got on with the fight - not using a judging mistake as an excuse. He went on to lose 2-1 but took the defeat amazingly well, which shows his maturity.
Coach and fighter Matt Roberts was selected, along with 23 of the other top fighters at the tournament to make a 24-man roster for the ‘Kombat Zone.’ The arena came to a standstill for this event, a firstto-score tournament which is fastpaced and exciting. Matt didn’t secure the win, but went on to win in a nail-biting first round against a strong Italian in his SM -94kg PF category. He countered with a strong kick with three seconds to go.
After stopping his quarter-final opponent with a brutal back-kick, he lost to the European champion in the semi-finals to claim a bronze. He cleared both of his first-round and second-round opponents in the SM +94kg category before losing to the world champion in the semi-finals. Matt took a silver in the SM -89kg LC category on day one.