Jesse competes for SA in WKF world karate championships

Edenvale resident Jesse Sim was recently selected by Karate South Africa (KSA) to represent the Protea karate team at the WKF World Karate Championships held in Santiago, Chile, recently.

Jesse was selected based on his number one ranking in the u-21 age group in KSA, a position he has held for the last three years.

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He was the only karate-ka from the Ekurhuleni region who attended the world championships.

Although Jesse did not get a medal at the world championships, his score was the highest a South African has achieved for kata at any world championships.

Jesse is a regular member of the South African Protea karate team, having earned both junior and senior Sascoc Protea colours since the age of 12.

Apart from winning his division at the KSA national championships this year, Jesse was also crowned the region 5 southern Africa kata champion in the u-21 division held in Swakopmund, Namibia.

He competed against athletes from Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Jesse was also crowned champion in the u-21 kata division at the Commonwealth Karate Championships in Durban on December 2018.

Jesse, together with two teammates, is also ranked number one in South Africa in the senior men’s team kata division, a ranking they have, as a team, held for the past five years.

They also won the senior men’s team kata division at the 2018 Commonwealth Championships.

This unison kata team also won a bronze medal at the 2017 Ufak African Continental Karate Championships in Rwanda, which ranked them third in Africa that year.

Jesse’s team will represent South Africa at the next UFAK Africa Championships, to be held in Tangiers, Morocco in February 2020.

He is a second dan black belt at the Goju Kai Crawford Italia Karate Academy in Bedfordview.

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