Local karate competitors Elijah West, Nathan Gould, T.J. Bright and Mason Green have been selected to represent both Plant City’s Chris Welbon Karate Club and their country as members of the 2023 AAU National Team at the WUKF World Karate Championships in Dundee, Scotland this summer.
“They’ve been training like mad, just trying to prepare,” Welbon said. “All of them have done tremendous in tournament competitions, last year in Nationals and all throughout this year during tournament competition. They’ve all excelled, improved and bumped up to the advanced division which is a big deal. That’s part of the process, you have to be in the advanced competitor and you have to do well, they’ve all done both of those things. This is the first year that we’ve had four competitors selected to the junior year all at one time.”
In addition to their performance in competitions, all four members had to attend the 2023 USA National Karate Team Trials in West Palm Beach where they were evaluated by coaches on their Kata (or their form/technique) and through sparring matches. All four had recently competed at the World Championships in Fort Lauderdale last year, an open competition where Bright winning a silver medal in kobudo (weapons kata), Green winning a bronze medal in kumite (sparring) and Gould winning a silver medal in kobudo, but this is the first time that the four competitors will participate as part of a national team that was selected to represent the United States overseas.
“This is a tremendous opportunity and I’m just so proud of all four of them, they’ve just done fantastic,” Welbon said.
Bright will be competing in the 11-12 year old age group, Green will be competing in the 13-14 year old age group, West will be competing in the 15-16 year old age group and Gould will be competing in the 17-18 year old age group.
“It’s just awesome,” West said. “I’m a patriot so just the fact that I can go over there and represent my country and compete over there at this elite level, it’s awesome.”
“It’s incredible,” Gould added. “It’s just another competition but it’s so much higher, it’s just such a better level of competition but at the same time we’re right there with them.”