A total of 385 Karate athletes from twelve different Countries attended and participated in this year’s Malta Karate Open 2012, which marked the 10th anniversary of these events since the first edition back in 2003. Chris Galea, the person behind the organization of these championships, said he was very satisfied with the level of Karate and the attendance of the general public who were present all day despite the bad weather we had during the course of the weekend.
Amongst all teams, the most quoted and strong team Russia won the overall Trophy finished first place amongst 15 other organization with a haul of 30 medals, 12 gold, 6 silver, 12 Bronze. Israel, which had a 45 athlete contingent finished second place with 7 Gold, 8 Silver and 11 Bronze. Malta which was represented by our local well known school SKSM Karate Malta, ended up third place ahead of England with a total 24 medals, 7 Gold, 7 Silver and 10 Bronze.
Other participating countries proved a great challenge to each other, including England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Portugal. These countries all brought International and well known athletes withy them, such as Brown, Simpson and Janar from England, Goodwin and Sneddon from Scotland, Bonadonna and Inserra from Italy and Ferriera and Schill from Luxembourg.
Malta, represented by athletes from the local Karate school SKSM Malta, had to contend with strong challenges in all the categories they entered. The very promising young Maltese athlete Andrew Galea won a personal total of 7 medals for the Malta team, 4 gold and 3 silver both in kata and in kumite. He also helped his team by winning one of the most coveted team categories in the Kumite section finishing first place amongst thirteen other international teams alongside with his team mates Jonathan Falzon and Drew Mconville. He also won the gold in Kumite and Kata categories. Other Maltese athletes who left a great impression on the day where Jamie Willoughby and Alenka Falzon who won four medals each in their respective categories.
The Championships were divided into three sections, the first part was the Traditional Kata, followed by the Free style and Weapons Kata, and the most awaited third part, the Kumite Section. Overall there were a total of 53 categories. The Chief Referee of the day was Lucienne Galea who professionally supervised the technical part of the championships with the help of 20 other International Referees and Judges which included also Maltese Officials. Ms Galea is an International Qualified Kumite Referee A and a qualified Kata Judge.
For next year’s eleventh edition of the Malta Open in 2013, five countries have already confirmed their participation. This clearly shows officials’ and participants’ confidence in the level of organization and the standard of Karate offered by the Malta Open which is organized by SKSM Karate Malta.
The organizer Mr. Chris Galea, said he would like to thank all the sponsors who helped this to be another successful event : Malta International Airport, L-Ghajn Stationery, Gary’s Gift Shop, Future Habitats, Kunsill Lokali Dingli, Stardust Stationery, DB Sports Centre, Mosta, Comweb Computers and Fotomalta.com. More information regarding this event can be found on www.sksmalta.com [1]