|
|
Sensei
Patrick
English of Finglas and Senpai Dave King of Galway had been
selected to
represent Ireland at the 3rd IFK World Tournament. Both fighters
were in the Heavyweight division and both had pushed themselves
really hard
in training.
Approximately 20 people went over from Ireland for the tournament
and we met
many people from other countries that we had met before and made
many new
friends. We flew over two days in advance and had the medical and
weigh in
the day before. Dave weighed in at 102kg (when we started
training he was
106) and Pat weighed in at 89kg (he was 96 at the start of the
training) On
the day of the tournament Crystal Palace was hotter than usual -
normally
there are 1200 people there - on this day there was 2200. There
was Taiko
drum demonstartion and then the fighters and officials parade.
Then the fighting started.
In the Heavyweights Pat was first up and as so often happens at
knockdown
tournaments he came up against an old foe - Anthony Klein from
ShinKyokushin
Holland. In Belgium last year Pat had fought and lost to him in
the
semi-finals so he knew what he was like. Unfortunately Pat didn’t
settle well and the fight went to an extension. After the second
two minutes
there was insufficient weight difference and so they fought for
a final two minutes with Anthony Klein winning by decision.
Dave was up about five minutes later so Pat was able to focus on
that. Dave
had drawn an American fighter called Marcin Jakubowski who looked
to be
lighter than Dave. Dave worked his low kicks well and after four
minutes he
was given a well deserved decision though you have to applaud the
american
for some of the punishment he took and yet he still stayed
standing. Dave was
to fight the winner of the next fight. This was between Tom
Silver of GB who
is a very capable young fighter and Timofei Tsyganov of Russia
who won the
BKK open in 2003 and several other titles before and since. He is
an extremely
strong fighter who had to be one of the favourites for the
heavyweight title.
Someone forgot to tell Tom Silver though because about one minute
in from
nowhere he throws a perfect Jodan Mawashi Geri. Tsyganov looks
stunned and
stood there for what seemed like an eternity before falling to
the mat -
ippon!
So it was Dave and Tom Silver and in keeping with the old foes
theme these
two had met before with Dave losing on weight after four minutes.
This time
was to be no different in the outcome but very different in the
execution. It
was a real battle and great to watch. Sadly that was us out and
all that was
left was to have a beer and enjoy the rest of the fights. There
were some
great fights and some worthy champions . The russian middleweight
who won was
awesome and the womens categories had some great fights too -
maybe someday
we will have someone in that.
The following countries participated:
Great
Britain,
Iran, Pakistan, South Africa, India, Norway, Poland, Switzerland,
France,
Holland, Belgium, Spain, Belarus, USA, Canada, Argentina,
Australia, Ukraine,
Estonia and Russia.
Click here to see some
pictures.
|
|
|
