HK Karate team pocketed three medals including a gold at Cairo

Hong Kong Karate athletes pocketed three medals including a gold at the Karate 1 Series A in Cairo, Egypt on Monday.

After leaving international competitions for four years due to a concussion during practice, 29-year-old Choi Wan-yu won 4-3 in the female kumite 55 kilograms class over Egyptian Hassan Salma.

Choi played an exciting contest with Salma in the final, and was tied at 3-3 in the ending phase of the match, and Choi delivered a dagger in the final two seconds before the match ended, scoring the point to win her the title.

In a post-match interview, Choi said she had not been participating in any competitions or even training after suffering from a concussion after the Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia in 2018, where she won a bronze medal in the female kumite 61 kg class.

“This is my first international competition after training for a few months. I did not have high hopes at first, and will be satisfied if I can play my ability to the full. It is really out of my expectation to get a result out of it,” Choi said.

“The gold medal is really meaningful for me, as I have never won a K1 medal before, and although this is not a top tier competition, this is already a shot in the arm for me, proving that I can still fight,” she added.

In the earlier matches, Choi first eliminated Egyptian Elgyar Manar and Algerian Siouda Djihad in the first two rounds.

She later eased past Thiebaut Helene from France 6-0 in the round of 16 and 4-0 against Kaur Amritpal from India in the quarterfinals, and grabbed a ticket into the final after winning 2-1 over Greek Stoli Maria.

In another category, Tung Yee-yin snatched silver in the female kata after a brilliant performance in Cairo, as she advanced to the gold medal match after topping the group in three rounds.

Tung scored 24.54 in the gold medal match, and was second to Egyptian Allam Asmaa’s 25.2, losing by 0.66 points.

In male kata, Howard Hung Ho-wai won bronze after placing third in the group stage and entered the bronze medal match.