At the recent Shikon British Open Karate tournament local teenage karate star Craig Brashaw from Newtownards claimed another British title for sparring.  The event itself was packed with over four hundred top world competitors from countries such as Romania, England, Poland, Ireland etc.  All of the events had good numbers and bags of quality.

Craig was in a category of twenty eight fighters and he produced better and better performances through every round.

In the final he was up against the classy Romanian Traj Ervin who had hardly dropped a point in any fight. However within the first minute of the fight with Craig, he was three nil down and hanging on.  He got one score back which was replied to by Craig with a stinging round-house kick. Had this been scored, the fight would have been over, however as often happens, it was not scored on this occasion and the Romanian went on to get the score back to three to two. With three seconds left on the clock the fight resumed. The Romanian could not catch Craig, who was delighted to be awarded the fight and a received a great cheer from both English and Irish competitors.

Coach Sam Lewis commented "It was an exceptional performance. Traj is world class and Craig fairly much stole the show. We were delighted, as this was a very tough and high quality competition."

Not to be totally outdone, Craig's dad Veteran competitor David Brashaw, former world kata champion made his competition comeback after a year out with injury. He made the final of the Wado-Ryu kata and was just point one behind the world Senior silver medallist Livi Dodoc, also from Romania.

Coach Kevin Lewis who refereed at the event added "The visiting teams from across Europe only bring their best competitors to this event.  It was a tremendous performance from both of our competitors and will inspire many of our up and coming students for forthcoming events."