Commonwealth Championships - Edinburgh May / June 2008 Report

The 4th Commonwealth Karate Championships were held in the Scottish Capital, Edinburgh on 31 May-1st June 2008. 

The board had decided to send the squad that had been selected for the Senior Estonia European Championships, to this event.  There were 9 countries competing in these championships including the home countries.  South Africa, Botswana, New Zealand, Canada and India had all made the long journey to  Edinburgh in search of gold.

There were 1300 competitors over the two day championships, the venue was bursting at the seams with all spectator seats occupied. The championships were split into two distinct parts, with the Elite and Open Senior events on the Saturday and the Children's events held on the Sunday.

Saturday started off with the Kata events for both Open and Elite sections running simultaneously. England's two representatives were Jonathan Mottram, fresh from winning European bronze in Estonia and Clare Bonello who was representing England for the first time.  Jonathan sailed through his Katas to meet a South African competitor in the final.  Jonathan performed Unsu Kata and beat his opponent's Annan Kata 5 flags to nil to take his 3rd consecutive Commonwealth title.  Clare Bonello competed in both the Elite and Open events. Clare narrowly missed gold in the final of the open event settling for a silver and took a well deserved bronze in the elite event to become a Commonwealth medallist.

With the kumite squad it was very difficult to keep track as some had opted to compete in the open events that were running at the same time as the Elite events. The squad competed extremely well with some close decisions with some pleasing results. 

Thanks to Wayne Otto OBE who was coaching on two mats and to David Inman our osteopath who stepped in to ensure the squad were well looked after.  Congratulations to the squad who will now be working hard towards selection on the 5th July for the World Championships later in the year. The results of the elite competition are as follows: