2004
29th Australian Kendo Championships
10th -
11th April 2004
Tallebudgera
Leisure Centre, Gold Coast,
The 29th Australian Kendo Championships was held in Gold
Coast,
NSW has done extremely well once again in this
year National Championships, with our members well-represented in the top 3
ranks in every available competition category. In both the Dan and
Kyu Individuals, NSW snapped up 3 of the top 4 spots, with Kirby Smith and
Michael Henstock winning the Dan and Kyu Individuals
respectively. In the Women Individuals, Melanie Smith came third with Hayami Aboutaleb (VIC) winning
the event. In the Veteran's Individuals final, Hong-Soo
Kim narrowly missed the top spot to Greg Nicholas (QLD) by
stepping out of the shiaijo twice.
In the Team competitions, the NSW Kyu Team won a closely
fought final against Victoria by 3-2 after winning their pool matches against
QLD and ACT. In the Womens Team event, the NSW
Women Team came second behind a very strong Victoria Team. The final of
the Kata competition was, again, a contest
between NSW and Victoria. In the end, our NSW Team snatched the Kata team crown with a winning Kata performance. The exciting Dan Team
competition final was a battle between NSW and QLD. After playing all
5 closely-fought team matches, the overall score was locked at 1-1.
Playoff by a team representative from both teams was needed to determine the
winner. The final match was extremely exciting (and nerve wrecking as
well) to watch as it was an extremely close match, with both
sides attacking and defending equally well in search of that special winning
opportunity. At the end, QLD produced the winning cut to take out the Dan
team title and NSW came a close second. All in all, NSW had produced
fantastic results at the 2004 National Championships, winning 4 gold, 4
silver and 5 bronze.
On behalf of all NSWKA members, I would like to sincerely
thank Yoichi Yano Sensei and Michael Payne Sensei for their time and dedication
in coaching, encouraging and supporting the NSW team to be ready for this
year's Australian Championships.
Well done NSW Team! Keep training hard and we shall
have a even stronger NSW Team in the 2005 Australian Championships in
Regards,
Vivian Yung
NSWKA Secretary
Click here for complete draws and results
TEAM EVENTS
Dan Team: Runner-up
Team Members: Daniel Kim, Stuart Burke, Kirby Smith, Yuji
Sano, Hong-Soo Kim, James Yu
Kyu Team: Winner
Team Members: Jackson Yoon, Andrew van Hamond, Kai Huang, Toshio Nishimoto,
Michael Henstock, Vivian Yung, Ben Ng
Womens Team: Runner-up
Team Members: Shoko Bunder,
Melanie Smith, Catherine Hallgath, Vivian Yung
Kata Team: Winner
Team Members: Takashi Itakura,
Kirby Smith
INDIVIDUALS EVENTS
Veteran's:
1st - Greg Nicholas (QLD)
2nd - Hong-Soo Kim (NSW)
3rd - Yoichi Yano (NSW)
3rd - Ken Okamoto (QLD)
Dan:
1st - Kirby Smith (NSW)
2rd - Brett Smith (VIC)
3rd - Hong-Soo Kim (NSW)
3rd - Daniel Kim (NSW)
Women:
1st - Hayami Aboutaleb
(VIC)
2nd - Kate Sylvester (VIC)
3rd - Melanie Smith (NSW)
3rd - Claire Chan (VIC)
Kyu:
1st - Michael Henstock (NSW)
2nd - Andrew van Hamond (NSW)
3rd - Kai Huang (NSW)
3rd - Anthony Tilbury (WA)
FIGHTING SPIRIT AWARD
* Chiaki Kobayashi (VIC)
* Nick Barlett
(SA)
* Daniel Kim (NSW)
* Peter Strauss (QLD)
JOHN BUTLER AWARD
* Susan Bonar (WA)