A group of young Ottawa martial artists is back home with some serious hardware after competing on the world stage in Berlin. Nine athletes from the Canadian Sport Martial Arts Academy travelled overseas as part of Team Canada for the Karate and Kickboxing World Championships, including six junior and three senior competitors. Head coach Danny Campbell says Team Canada included nearly 30 athletes in total. For 15-year-old Abigail Gauthier-Nip, the trip ended with a clean sweep. She competed in four divisions, traditional kata, hard-style kata, point sparring and weapons – winning gold in all four. “It was very intimidating because there were at least 50 world champions in the room,” Gauthier-Nip recalled. “So, I was like, wow, these people are so cool.” Gauthier-Nip has been training at the academy for about five years, but says competing was not initially part of the plan. “At first I didn’t want to compete,” she said. “But then I tried the competition team, and it was very fun.” Her teammates also found success across a wide range of disciplines. Carolina Caizapanta, 12, won three gold medals in sparring, kata, and bo. She said kata was the most difficult of the three. “I’m not really confident for kata,” she said. “it’s a very hard traditional form and there’s judges on every corner inspecting any mistake. It’s really hard to win.” Seventeen-year-old Ileyah McBride competed in kata, sparring and weapons events, including a gold-medal performance in traditional weapons. “I use something called a bo staff,” McBride said. “It’s just a very long stick that you kind of swing around.” For brothers Allan and Arian Moradi-Drozdov, the championships also meant stepping into the fighting ring. Allan, 14, won gold in point fighting, while 13-year-old Arian competed in point fighting, kata, two light kickboxing divisions and K-1. The K-1 competition marked Arian’s first time fighting in a ring. “I had to fight a German who was taller than me,” he said. “It was my first time ever fighting in the ring because I recently started kickboxing.” Arian said the atmosphere added another challenge. “When you start the fight, you have to stare down your opponent and that really just gets on the nerves,” he said. “Everyone is yelling in the background while you’re in the ring. It’s like a whole new environment.” Fifteen-year-old Zoe Rae also returned to Ottawa with four medals, including gold in point sparring, silver in weapons and two bronze medals in forms. For Rae, one of the most memorable moments came before the competition even started. “When Team Canada walked into the room all together cheering and shouting, it was amazing,” she said. “It was such a moment of national pride. And to be able to represent Ottawa as well, it was so cool.” Campbell says watching his students compete internationally brought his own martial arts career full circle. Academy owner Imran Jaffer took Campbell to his first World Championships nearly 14 years ago. Campbell is now coaching the next generation of athletes on the same stage. “It was a crazy moment because it’s almost three generations of martial artists going to the World Championships and winning,” Campbell said. Jaffer says the athletes’ success represents years of development that often begins long before competition is even considered. “Everyone starts in our studio as a white belt, and then there’s so many different paths in martial arts and everyone’s martial arts journey,” he said. Jaffer says many children initially enter martial arts to develop qualities such as focus, discipline, and confidence. “A lot of these kids started with me, their parents enrolled them because they have no confidence in themselves,” he said. “Martial arts naturally develops confidence.” The academy’s competitors are already looking toward what comes next. Some are preparing for another major international competition in Italy, while others hope to add new disciplines, including kickboxing, to their training. Campbell believes the results in Berlin also showed that Ottawa can hold its own on the international martial arts stage. “The world knows that there is an absolute unstoppable force in martial arts, and that is Ottawa karate,” he said. For Gauthier-Nip, becoming a four-time world champion has not changed much about everyday life. She is already back at school and says most of her classmates do not even know what she accomplished. “Nothing has really changed because I didn’t really tell anyone,” she said with a laugh.
