Congratulations to Chief Instructor Digger Barnes for his Silver Medal at the WUMA Kickboxing European Championships held this weekend in Worcester.
It was a long day with hundreds of competitors competing from all over Europe for 7 hours across 4 areas.
It was great to see lots of friends at the Championship. We hadn’t seen many of them for several years due to the pandemic.
After a long wait the Masters division was called. Digger had time for a good warm up and felt great after putting in some extra fitness work for the last few months. There were some great fights from all competitors in the Masters division to entertain the crowd.
The fight of the day for Digger was against this competitor from the Spanish Team (below).
The Masters division is an ‘open weight’ category and there was a 20kg (3 stone) advantage for the Spanish competitor.
The fight was a rather ‘lively’ affair and it kept the referees very busy ! It was very close all the way and Digger was delighted to come out on top with some great, high-scoring head kicks to get the win which put Digger into the final.
The final ended up being a great deal of fun as Digger found himself facing his good friend Dan Woodruff (below)
Dan has represented England and Great Britain many times and won numerous national and international Championships. Digger has known Dan a long time and knew it would be almost impossible to beat him.
So, the final was good natured with two friends fighting for Gold however Digger was not able to match Dan’s incredible skill.
Dan was the worthy winner but Digger walked away utterly delighted with his Silver Medal as this was more than he expected to achieve at such an event. The Spanish competitor (above) went on to win the Bronze. Huge congratulations to Dan for taking the Gold for England.
Hopefully Digger’s Silver Medal performance was good enough for selection onto the WUMA England Team that will compete at the World Championships in Greece next year. We will find out in the coming months so watch this space.
