This years Junior Europeans were held in Zurich, Switzerland and our very own Fran Hardcastle of KHALSA CHAMPIONS was representing the Junior category -53kg Kumite.
Fran had a good opening round winning 3-0 although it was a bit tentative. Her second round she lost 0-1 to Bosnia who went on to reach the final. That sent Fran through to repo against home nation Swiss. Unfortunately there seemed to be a misunderstanding before the fight whereby Fran was going to be disqualified because of no coach. This meant her mind was not in the right place. Fran would have to compete with no coach. Subsequently she lost 0-4 and came 9th overall.
Sensei Sat commented “After last years result I was confident that Fran could medal again and we got off to a good start. The second fight was pressured but not enough techniques were thrown which is a shame as Bosnia girl was scoring for fun on all the other fighters and only managed to get one point on Fran. Had Fran scored she would have won that fight. The last round was a spectacle but again coach or no coach Fran attacked but was always second to the point something we need to work on. All in all not the result Fran or the club wanted however we are still all very proud of her achievements.”
