Taylah Burrowes with the gold medal she won at last weekend’s karate nationals. Photo supplied.Ashburton 14-year-old Taylah Burrowes has claimed her first gold medal at the national karate championships.

The win in the 14/15 year old kumite division topped off a big few months for Burrowes, who also won gold at the New Zealand Open in March, and finished fourth at the Oceania championships, narrowly missing out on bronze.

While the win earlier this year at the New Zealand Open (which is open to people from other countries too) was Burrowes’ second win at that competition, last weekend’s win was her first New Zealand national title at the national championships.

She had to defeat three others on her way to winning gold.

“One of them was quite close, but the other two weren’t too bad,” Burrowes said.

She said she wasn’t sure how she’d fare going into the competition, having only arrived home from a holiday in Fiji a couple of days earlier. “I had been away the week before so I was a little bit nervous going into it,” Burrowes said.

Burrowes said her next karate competition would be in Auckland next month, with the next Commonwealth Karate Championships not on her radar.

Burrowes attended the Karate Commonwealth Games in India a couple of years ago, and the next Commonwealth competition is being held in South Africa later this year. They were initially scheduled to host the competition last year but it was put off due to security fears and as a result, many competitors – Burrowes included – are staying away.

Burrowes was one of six Ashburton karate exponents competing in Wellington last weekend, with Kyle Cabangun also in action in the boys’ 14/15 year old age group. He came second.

Burrowes was also fourth in the kata.

© The Ashburton Guardian - 21 July 2018