31st NATIONAL SENIOR KARATE CHAMPIONSHIP, JOHOR BAHRU

GOLDEN PERFORMANCE BY CHRISTINA IN MAIDEN OUTING
AT NATIONAL SENIOR KARATE CHAMPIONSHIP

from left : Nini Erfani, Syarulniza, Christina & Hairi

Labuan Karate Association (LKA) achieved an unexpected golden outing in their maiden participation through the state junior women karate team at the 31st National Karate Championship which was held in Johor Bahru on 21-22 May 2011.

Labuan sent a 5-member delegation headed by Aswadee Taba, Labuan coach cum team manager with 4 athletes namely Christina Edris, Syarulniza Abdul Jamil, Nini Erfani Kasman and Mohd Hairi Abdul Jamil.

The trio of Christina Edris, Syarulniza Abdul Jamil and Nini Erfani Kasman , having been competing only in national junior and cadet championships for the past five editions have finally come of age by contributing 1 Gold, 1 Silver and 3 Bronze medals to finish a very commendable 4th placing overall out of the 22 teams who participated.

Perennial Kumite powerhouse, Hayashi-Ha Karate Association were placed first with an unassailable 10G, 5S, 3B results, setting up another record as 16-time national champions since 1996. Reknowned Kata powerhouse, Penang won 4G, 2S, 7B with all the golds from kata events came second and Selangor were placed third with 4G, 2S, 5B.

Christina won Labuan's only gold in the women's individual kumite above 68kg category with the silver coming from the trio's women team kumite category, while the 3 bronze medals were attained through Christina (in women's individual open kumite category), Syarulniza (in women's individual kata event) and again the trio's women team kata category).

LKA secretary and chief instructor, Bryan Tan said, "Ever since our first participation at this annual national senior championship upon our affiliation to the national body i.e. Malaysia Karate Federation (MAKAF) in 1992, we had never in one outing won more than 1 medal of any colour or none at all for the past 19 years. We managed to win our previously only gold medal in 2003 but then this current achievement is all the more important because our very own junior athletes had progressed tremendously from being champions at national schools, cadet and junior championships to national senior level now.

I am confident that Christina will be called up for her first international assignment soon, maybe at this year's Jakarta SEA Games 2011.

Do not forget that she beat the same national exponent of her weight category twice in winning her 2 individual medals , and she also contributed 2 medals in the team events. That 4-medal individual performance speaks volume of her potential as a future national athlete and she is not even 18 years of age yet."

Syarulniza had also done us proud by her individual kata achievement because we used to come home empty-handed in this category but now we even managed to beat previously powerhouse Sabah in this individual kata category, and it is quite an achievement on its own.

For Nini, she has all the talent but she always come out short a number of times. But this championship had given her a lot of confidence after winning 2 medals both in the team kata and team kumite events and this augers well in her future assignments."

Last but not least, Aswadee Taba, our one and only full-time instructor cum coach deserved equally a lot of credit and praise in turning around a supposedly herculean task into a sort of miracle achievements in a short 3 months of centralised training here and also at the overseas training in Jakarta for a 1-week stint ... aso this will not be possible without the continuous contribution and financial support from the Labuan Sports Council and also to our President, Edward Kong for his leadership."