Held in June 2019 on the Gold Coast,

Alex Sheychenko and Yekatia won Silver in Kata with their Kime No Kata. Katia and Alex went to the 2018 Nationals for Kata, and they won gold at NSW state level, and then they placed second in the Nationals this year,  as well as doing well within individual competition. 

They entered with two Kata’s instead of one this year, so they would get a second chance at a medal.

 Katia competed with a Western Australia man,  everyone knows everyone and she has done so before

Last year, the top level world Kata champion trained with the NSW players,  but this year he trained two Tasmanian players no one had seen before, and everyone could see they were very very good.

Katia had an ankle injury and hadn’t trained for six weeks,  so in preparation for shiai, between Kata on Friday and the Veterans on Monday Alex and Katia did light randoori constantly. The pressure was never off for those five days – seeing them in the dojo a week later they were still exhausted, but pleased.

Photos are from Katia Yu and Air Volansky.