AFTER a successful IKU European Championships in Santarem, Portugal, Karate Wales were again in action only a week later.

A delegation including 26 athletes, a referee, five coaches and the president, vice-president and two directors made the trip to the WUKF European Championships, which were held in Liege, Belgium, from June 3-7.

The Vale of Glamorgan was well represented, with Vale Karate, based at Barry’s YMCA Hub under Karate Wales president Rob Copeland and director Lee Costa's Welsh Karate Jutsu-Kai having several members of the Karate Wales Squad.

The competition got underway in an understated way, with the preliminary rounds of all Kumite team events starting at 2pm on Thursday afternoon.

Penarth’s Trinity and Krisiny Hutchinson were members of Karate Wales’ Female mini-cadets team who had a tough first round, narrowly losing to Romania.

Meanwhile the boys Mini-cadets team, which included Harrison Williams of Penarth and Josh Dwyer from Barry did better, beating the English FEKO team, before losing to the eventual winners Belarus.

Nevertheless securing Wales’ first medals of the Championships, bronzes.

Friday started with a bang as the stadium was buzzing from the beginning, with 1000 children from countries around Europe awaiting their chance on the tatami.

Young Griff Hughes from Penarth is a huge talent in Kata and after the preliminary round his performance of Jion put him in second place.

Unfortunately his final Kata; Bassai Dai was not quite so well received, and he slipped to Bronze medal position, still a great result at his international debut.

As the kata events came to an end, the kumite began, and again Karate Wales were in the thick of the action.

The Penarth siblings, Connery and Keana Hutchinson, always do well at WUKF events and again didn’t disappoint, each winning bronze medals.

Christopher Slack went even better, reaching the final.

Chris stepped up to a new level, beaten narrowly in the final to take a fantastic silver.

The Vale Karate trio of Chris, Harrison and Josh showed their all-round talent, as representing Wales they reached the final of the Mini-Cadets Team Kata in fourth position. (Chris stepped up from the 11-12 year-old ‘Children's’ categories to the 13-14 year 'Mini-cadets’ as the rules allow this.)

In the final they pulled off their favourite Kata 'Kanku Sho' in great style, earning joint top marks of the day, to move up to third and take the bronze medals.

Leah Copeland from Barry was Wales’ final fighter in action, and although improving all the time, came up against the Romanian number one in her semi-final and unable to get passed her, was forced to settle for the bronze medal to bring the curtain down on another extremely successful event for Karate Wales.