Conor and Elisabetta are karate athletes based in Oxfordshire, aged 19 and 17. We train together 3-4 times a week and compete often at both national and international level. We have both travelled to compete for a GB team in countries such as Russia and Japan, as well as winning many national championship titles since 2011. The time now is coming upon us to take our karate to the next level with many fantastic opportunities arising to us, such as being invited by a GB team to train and compete in countries such as Italy, Romania and Portugal with world karate masters.
As well as continuing to develop our karate abilities, we also teach and run our own classes to children across Oxfordshire. As instructors we aim to teach top quality karate and self defence to the next generation.
Next year we have both been invited to travel to Japan in July, the birthplace of karate, where we will be training on an international seminar for 8 full days led by the most profound chief karate instructors from Japan and all over the world. We will then travel across Japan and compete for Team GB in the 44th Annual All Japan Karate-Do Gojukai Championships, a very prestigious and high level event which holds over 2000 competitors. We are seeking fundraising and sponsorship opportunities to help us in achieving this target; as we are both students in full time education (university and sixth form) it is difficult for us to raise the efficient funds needed to travel to Japan and make this dream come true. From our experience in Japan we will be looking to improve our karate under world masters of the sport, as well as gaining great experience in competing at such a high level event, we then hope to gain the recognition from this event to break into the England national squad with the hope of competing for our country in the 2020 Olympics in Japan. The knowledge we gain we will then be implementing into our teaching and looking to build our own students into world-class karate athletes.