BUSA Karate Championships 2008

The British Universities Sports Association (BUSA) Karate Championships are held annually, usually in or around Lent Term. University clubs from around the UK travel to the host university to compete against each other. Cambridge has had a long and very distinguished involvement at BUSA, picking up many medals and trophies over the years. This year's event was held in Sheffield as part of the week-long BUSA Student Games.

Competition Report

The 2008 British University Sports Association (BUSA) Karate Championships which took place this past weekend in Sheffield. CUKC sent a very strong squad of 12 competitors and we are very happy to say that we have had one of the best results in recent memory with 5 individual medals and a team cup!

The competition started off with a bang when Richard Morrisby won the gold medal in the Individual Brown Belt Men's Kata division with a spectacular Bassai Dai. The kata team (Ian MacLeod, Paul Smith, and Tom Johnson) marched to the finals where they performed a solid Kanku Sho and pleased the crowds with a revamped and intensified bunkai which earned the gold medal over Brunel, thereby retaining the BUSA team kata trophy for CUKC. Roman Sztyler easily advanced to the Senior Men's Dan Grade Kata final with a variety of stunning katas, where he performed his signature Unsu and, as usual, silenced the crowd. He was unlucky this time around, as his opponent (a world kata medalist) pulled 4 of the 5 flags, with Roman taking the silver medal.

Madeleine started off the rally of kumite medals by taking third place in the Women's Openweight Division, losing only one match to a seasoned international competitor. Melissa Ruessler won a well-earned bronze medal in the Women's Novice Middleweight Division. Ian MacLeod took the bronze medal in the Men's Senior U75kg Kumite with a series of fights that included one perfect takedown which resulted in a sanbon as well as a beautiful sweep that also scored a sanbon.

In this large competition, we also had some very impressive performances that just narrowly missed medals. Tom Johnson and Andrew Rough performed many impressive kata to progress through the rounds to the semi-finals of their respective divisions, only missing out to very tough opponentsin the repachage final. Paul Smith also missed out on a bronze medal by the smallest margins when, despite holding a strong opponent to a draw in a very close match in the repachage final, his opponent scored a punch in the very last second of the fight.

In addition to the BUSA medals that were won at this competition, Madeleine Wood, Roman Sztyler, and Ian MacLeod have earned Full Blues for successfully earning a medal in a senior individual event at BUSA. Congratulations to them!!

As always, we want to congratulate everyone that competed in this tournament. You all did an outstanding job and represented CUKC with the utmost honour and class.