A KARATE Academy showed that it has some of the best athletes in the country as competitors returned from a national competition with seven medals.

Launched in Newton-le-Willows in 1984, North West Karate Academy has been home to countless athletes over the decades, and has won countless medals at domestic, regional, national, and international level.

The club has also had athletes go on to represent their country in international competitions, and following the difficulties of covid, it has achieved success once again as eight members represented the club at last month's HX Karate Cup in Huddersfield.

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With six of the eight competitors representing the Academy for the first time, the team competed under the association banner of Karate-Do-Federation, and returned with two golds, two silver, and three bronze medals.

First-time competitors George Bradbury and Arusnan Thayabaran performed well in the boys’ +30kg under 10 years Kumite, winning silver and bronze medals respectively.

Liam Potter won a silver medal in the male senior -75kg Kumite, while Alfie Macdonald competed in the under 18 years +76kg Kumite and achieved a bronze medal.

After taking a break from competing due to covid and starting families, brothers and instructors Zach and Luke Scott also found success in their categories.

Zach won gold in the senior male +84kg category with comfortable victories, while Luke achieved the veterans gold Kata and the bronze medal in veterans kumite.

Ewan Boyd and Jaygo Woods also performed well but narrowly missed out on medals.

One of the leaders at the Academy said that the medals marks the "beginning of their new journey towards success".