Fist full of golds for martial artists

MARTIAL artists from Forres have returned from The Magic Kingdom with a bit more than happy memories.

Eleven students from the De-Vry Korean Martial Arts School in Forres, along with Tang Soo Do students from Inverness, brought back a fist full of medals from a recent competition.

They were competing as part of the Scotland Tang Soo Do team at The World Championships in Orlando, Florida.

The team returned with an impressive haul of medals after competing over two days at the event which was held at the Disneyland resort in Florida.

The open hand forms and weapon forms were held on the Friday and the individual sparring and team sparring were held on the Saturday.

They brought back an impressive load, including one Grand Champion, none Gold, seven Silver and four Bronze medals.

Results for DKMA students were impressive.

Dominique Sutherland (19) 3 Gold and 1 Bronze

Paul Luxon (13) 1 Gold and 2 Silver

Charlotte Luxon (12) 1 Gold and 1 Silver

Cameron Peat (15) 2 Silver

Felicity and Henry Stephen (11) each won one Bronze medal.

This was the first time that the Black Belt ladies were able to enter the female International team sparring event.

Master Kelly O’Connor (ITSD) and 2nd Dan Dominique Sutherland (DKMA) were part of the British three-women team that beat off rivals from the US, Holland and South Africa, winning the world title.

Father and Daughter Paul and Charlotte Luxon (12) set themselves the extra challenge of seeing how many medals they could get between them.

Both of them did exceptionally well winning 2 Gold’s and 3 Silvers between them.

Full story in this week's Gazette