Four members of Karate Canada’s Senior National Team Roster were in Russia for the Moscow 2019 WKF Karate-1 Premiere League event (a very high-level event assembling the world’s top ranked athletes in every Senior division), held October 4-6. National Team Kumite Coach Roman Saltikov was sent by Karate Canada to support participants at this important international competition, via its Team 2020 program (in large part funded by the government of Canada, following positive funding recommendations from Own The Podium). Team Canada’s athlete Melissa Bratic (female -68 kg kumite) was unfortunately eliminated in her first round, while Kate Campbell (female -55kg kumite) won her first match and Daniel Gaysinsky (male +84 kg kumite) won his first 2 bouts.

Haya Jumaa, however, took another important step towards qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, by earning the silver medal in her division (female -61 kg kumite), defeating (for the second time in 2 weeks!) her rival Xiaoyan Yin from China (#1 ranked athlete in the World Karate Federation’s -61kg Olympic standing, and silver medalist at the 2018 Senior World Championships) along the way. Haya also crushed Gwendolyne Philippe of France (ranked # 5 in the Olympic standings and winner of the 2019 Paris and Dubai Karate 1 Premier League events) by an 8-0 point gap, in her semi-final match. Karate Canada wishes to sincerely congratulate all Canadian participants at this event, and especially Haya for her outstanding performance!

You may click here to view the full results.

Photo: Marc-André Donato