Meet the world champions
After a successful season during which they had both won gold at both the British and European Championships, Chris and Geri travelled to the WTKA Unified World Martial Arts Championships in Tuscany with high hopes of emulating last year's gold medal success.
On the first day of competition, Chris' first taste of action came as he was chosen for the England Boys Cadet team (13-15 yrs) in the Points Sparring. Despite being undefeated in his two bouts, the team had to settle for 4th place. Geri qualified for the final of the Girls U35Kgs Points Sparring with a victory against the second ranked English girl and later produced a great performance to qualify for the final of the Individual Musical Forms.
The second day of the competition saw qualify for the finals in their Open Hand and Weapons forms divisions and as hoped, qualifying to defend their Team Form title. Geri went one better by also making the final of the Girls Black Belt Team form.
Finals day and what a memorable day it would prove to be. The atmosphere as the teams arrived for competition and the arena filled up was electric. Flags waving, competitors and spectators mingling together from almost one hundred countries, the English team was full of confidence and first up it was Weapons Combat. Chris stormed through three qualifying matches and then defeated a Swiss boy in the final to win the World title. In similar fashion, Geri also won her way through to the final but had to settle for Silver, again against Swiss opposition.
Next up, the Vietnamese Weapons Combat was a new category that the kids had not experienced before and Geri was eliminated early on but Chris overcame some extremely big and aggressive fighters to claim a well- earned Silver medal in a round robin format.
The Forms competitions are where it all started for Chris and Geri and again in Italy they came away with medals from divisions that included some of the strongest fields at the championships. Both finished 4th in their Weapons Forms finals but in the Open Hand Forms Chris earned a wonderful Bronze behind Venezuelan and English competitors and Geri took Bronze behind two Italian girls. This however was just the start as they then stepped onto the mat together to defend their title in the Team Form and claimed a deserved Gold. Not content with one Forms gold Geri was soon at the top of the podium again with her Girls Black Belt Team mates who not only won Gold but were awarded perfect scores of seven by two of the three judges.
Padded up for their Points Sparring Finals Chris and Geri both fought with bags of courage but had to settle for Silver this time. Chris could not find a way around the long legs of his markedly taller German opponent and lost on points but Geri fought like a tiger against arguably the best pound for pound fighter in the world from Scotland and was not disgraced in collecting Silver from that bout.
It had been a long hard week but Geri had one last appointment on the mat, leading off for the English Girls (10-12yrs) A team in their Team Points Sparring Final against England B. Despite losing her bout 3-5 against a much bigger, fresher opponent, Geri claimed her third Gold medal as the team triumphed 16-12.
A fantastic week in Tuscany ended with Geri claiming a total of three Gold, three Silver and one bronze medal. Chris returned with two Gold, two Silver and a Bronze. Roll on next year.
Take the Lead/ December, 2013 6