Karate: Trediga off to World Champs

The Whangarei contingent at the Oceania Championships. Back row: Shane Trediga, Teuarangi Tana and Craig Nordstrand. Front row: D'Artagnan Gould, Kingiteahuahu Tana, Imogen Ear and Cameron Sear.

Local martial artist, Shane Trediga is due to fly to Austria for the karate world championships this month to represent New Zealand.

Trediga's selection means this will be the first time someone from Dargaville represents New Zealand at the world championship level.

This comes off a strong year for Northland karate club competitors.

The Miyagi Kan Karate Club, led by Craig Nordstrand, sent six competitors to the Oceania's championships in September against competitors from 10 countries and they returned with nine medals including four golds.

Trediga, who won two silver medals and one bronze, said he is fighting fit and ready to take on the worlds.

Trediga has been training with the Miyagi Kan Karate Club since he was 9 years old and started competing seriously at 13.

He said the worlds were always his goal.

"Competing at the world championships has been a dream since I began taking competition karate seriously," he said.

"My typical training regime is sprints and plyometric drills in the mornings, then sparring, timing and distance training after work at the dojo."

"My goal in Austria is to bring home New Zealand's first senior world karate medal."

Trediga also assists with training the next generation of karate kids and said it's inspiring to see the effort and dedication they are putting in.

"The kids are streets ahead of my skill level when I was their age so the prospect of them developing into extremely talented senior athletes is exciting," he said.

The younger team members range between 10 and 17 years old, with 10 year old gold medal winner Kingiteahuahu Tana being the youngest and his sister, 17 year old bronze medal winner Teuarangi Tana being the oldest.

Cousins Imogen Ear and Cameron Sear brought home gold and silver medals respectively while 12 year-old D'Artagnan Gould repeated his gold medal win from the Oceania's 2 years ago.

Karate has just been announced as an Olympic sport for 2020 and sensei Craig Nordstrand is optimistic that Whangarei will be represented there too.