At the Karate Canada National Championships at the Richmond Oval, Karate BC hosted teams from all provinces, the largest coming from Quebec, B.C. and Ontario.
With Karate now becoming an Olympic Sport for 2020 Tokyo, this event will be an Olympic trial event in the near future. The quality of BC athletes has improved greatly in the past several years with the anticipation of being included in the Olympics.
Several Athletes from the Campbell River Shito Ryu Karate Club competed at these nationals on the Jan. 30 weekend. Locals Valerie Doyon and Casey Brake competed over the three-day event. Doyon, now residing and going to university in Ontario, finally finished her goal of winning a national championship after five tries. She won her U21 under 68 KG kumite event in style and later placed silver in the women’s event under 68 KG kumite. Doyon recently attended the World Championships in Jakarta, Indonesia this past November and previously the Pan American championships in Bolivia.
Fifteen-year-old Brake challenged the 16/17 are group and was a standout in her division of 13, winning all four matches and only allowing one point to be scored on her through all four matches.
She had aspirations of making the Canadian team and wanted to go to the Pan American Championships but would have aged out if she didn’t challenge up, as it turned out she made the right decision. Brake has been preparing for this event for the last year after competing at the 2015 nationals and learning how much preparation she needed to succeed. She had to go through the Vancouver Island Championships and then provincials and then on to the final selection of the BC team. Once she made Team B.C. she was on her way to compete at nationals.
“Casey put her goal of being national champion on the whiteboard at the club at the beginning of 2015 and its remained up there to date,” said Club Sensei and head coach Roy Tippenhauer. “Casey does things in a non-assuming way and prefers to let her results speak for herself. I have coached her since she was five and she was always a very coachable athlete.”
Brake will now be eligible to train with Team Canada and will possibly be selected to attend the Pan American Championships.
“Both of our girls have put in a tremendous amount of work to get to this stage in their competitive career and I want to congratulate both of them,” Tippenhaur said.
Campbell River Shito Ryu was founded by Roy Tippenhauer in 1985 and offers classes for all ages and abilities. Contact us at www.shito-ryu.ca or look on Karate BC website for other club locations in town.