Young karateka set to take on the world’s best in Portugal

Four local martial arts students are bound for Portugal this October where they will compete against the best of the best at the 2024 World Martial Arts Championships.

Cjhay Besgrove, Josh Newman, Madi Newman and Hannah Nicholls are all members of Orange’s long-running martial arts school, Kamao Martial Arts, founded 31 years ago by instructor Rolly Tandang.

To earn their place in Portugal, each of the four had to win events at a regional and state level, then finish in the top five at the Australian Martial Arts Championships last year.

For 14-year-old Cjhay Besgrove, this will be her second world championships in two years. Having only begun training martial arts four years ago, last November Cjhay brought home two podium trophies from the 2023 World Martial Arts Championships in Japan.

“The whole club started competing and I wanted to see how far I could go with it,” said Cjhay. “It was a good opportunity and experience.”

For the other three, this October will be their first international competition. Hannah was set to compete in Japan with Cjhay but unfortunately fell ill ahead of the tournament.

Instructor Rolly Tandang is confident his young students will prove themselves in Portugal.

“Cjahy won the World Karate Championship in Japan and these three are Australian Champions,” he said. “Hannah was supposed to be in Japan last year but she got sick so it's time for her to fight back this year and hopefully we can bring home the bacon!

“Hopefully, we can make more champions in this town!”

As well as attending Kamao’s twice-weekly training sessions at the Bowen Public School hall in preparation for their journey to Portugal, the team are also actively fundraising to help them get over to the tournament.

This Saturday, February 24, look out for the team holding a barbecue at Autobarn Orange. They will also be running the Bunnings barbecue on April 13 and July 13.