The Burnaby Karate Academy dominated the Karate B.C. provincial championships.
The North Burnaby dojo garnered 15 first-place results and 41 individual medals in the advanced and open divisions at the two-day competition at the Richmond Olympic Oval last month.
Claudia Laos-Loo won gold in two separate classes and a pair of third-place medals in black-belt team kata or forms and kumite or sparring. She also won gold in the women’s 18 to 20 advanced kata and kumite.
Nikkei Karate had 13 total medals, including nine bronze.
Jai Sanghera, Isaac Mand and Alexandra Zaborniak all won two individual provincial titles for Burnaby Karate Academy.
Sanghera took gold in the advanced 16 and 17 boys’ under-76 kilogram division and in the 18 to 20 men’s u-75kg group over clubmate Kyle Macmillan.
Mand took top spot in the men’s 18 to 20 advanced u-60kg class. Mand also won the men’s black belt gold. Macmillan was runner-up in the men’s black belt ahead of teammate Arash Beytoei.
Zaborniak won the women’s 18 to 20 u-61kg advanced division. She also won the women’s black-belt gold medal.
Other BKA winners included: Jonathan Douglas in boys’ 14 and 15 advanced plus-70kg kumite, Justin Ng at u-57kg, Jacob Mand at u-70kg and Joel Tai in boys’ 16 and 17 advanced u-61kg over clubmate Arjun Gill. Brendan Ly also won gold in men’s plus-84kg black belt sparring.
On the girls’ mat, Caitlyn Santos won gold for BKA in girls’ 12 and 13 advanced sparring, while Stephanie Zaborniak won the girls’ 14 and 15 advanced u-47kg in an all-BKA podium with Ginger Lin, Maya Soehardhi and Caitlyn Lam.
Zoe Fong took first place in girls’ 16 and 17 advanced u-48kg over Melissa Chan, Rika Wong placed first at u-59kg over third-place finishers Parvin Mayan and Angelica Gomez-Lalonde.
Michael Plunkett, Mark Wong, Kole Macmillan, Masaki Soehardhi, Kieran Quan, Adrianna Milkovic, Julia MacLean, Natasha Lam, Aya Kitaoka, Pawan Sidhu, Natasha Hartand, Harpreet Sidhu and Gurkamal Gill also medalled for BKA.
In the Nikkei dojo, Nia Laos-Loo, Yuji Matsuda, Melissa Chan, Danielle Fookes, Rosalyn Cheng, and Kohei Yamamura also picked up top-three medals at the provincials.
