K-Town participants represent Team America

***image1***Recently, 19 martial artists, youth and adults from the KMC came together to represent Team America at the World of Martial Arts Athletics World Championship Tournament in Castlebar, Ireland, Aug. 16 and 17. This was the ninth such tournament hosted by this organization and all participants had to qualify in Stuttgart earlier this summer before making the August trip to Ireland.

There were nearly 700 participants from 11 different countries participating in continuous sparring, point fighting, grappling, breaking and various forms demonstrations with and without weapons and/or music.  There were also team events along with “King and Queen of the Ring,” where the last person standing earned a monetary prize, and the Grand Championships finale.

The K-town contingent of Team America was comprised of students from Loveless Academy and Ramstein’s Karate Tech. All performed very well by taking a combined 15 gold medals, 18 silver medals and eight bronze medals.  Four local participants were among the best of the best and advanced to the Grand Championship finale, held as the culmination event of the weekend tournament. To do this, they had to compete against all other first place winners and place in the top three within their division in order to earn a spot at the showcase event.

Lt. Col. Muriel Brown, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, was the big winner, earning the top prize as Grand Champion winner in Women’s Forms. Grand Champion runner-up honors went to three Ramstein participants. Runner-up in weapons forms (12 to 17 years) went to Collin Lyon;
2nd Lt. Sean Villeneauvea was runner-up in men’s grappling/Jiu Jitsu; and Jakob Pugh was runner-up in junion black belt forms (17 and under). Brown and Lyon both train at the Loveless Academy in Einsiedlerhof while Villenuauvea and Pugh are independents.

This was a great opportunity for the kids and adults to compete at this level against competitors from other countries.  The days were long and in addition to being ambassadors for our country, everyone did very well in their events, which is a testament to the quality programs available in our community.