BARRHEAD and Merrylee Martial Arts Club I-Kick Martial Arts enjoyed a fantastic start to the 2017 season, winning 17 medals at the ITF Scottish Taekwondo Championships at Ravenscraig in Motherwell last weekend.

This is only the second year the club has participated in the event in Motherwell.

Nine of the students battled against competitors from 25 other clubs across the UK to attain the prestigious titles of Scottish Champion 2017 for patterns or sparring in their age and height division.

Head instructor Ross Penman said: “We are so proud of all our young competitors who were representing the club at the ITF Scottish Taekwon-Do championshipslast weekend.

“We are seeing great improvements in them all from competition to competition and the performances speak for themselves.

“We had 16 competitors entered and won a total of nine golds, four silver and four bronze medals.

“We now have nine junior Scottish Champions this year and for such a young and growing club, we are absolutely delighted with our results.”

Christopher Meechan and Sarah Li, the youngest competitors from I-Kick to participate, showed their nerve to go on and win gold for patterns for male and female, age seven7 and under, yellow tag.

Next up in the age 8-10 category Barrhead students, Lewis Milan and Lauren Kee showed style and grit, fighting fought off tough competition to win won four golds between them, earning titles for Male (yellow belt) and Female (green belt) for patterns and sparring in their height group.

This opened the flood-gates for the 8-10 age group, with Zach Kiley and Kyle Chatham both winning gold for Male Sparring (green tag) and (blue tag) respectively for their height groups.

Rebecca McMahon took silver for special technique, a bronze for sparring and Zak Gilmour and Liam McMilan also winning bronze for pattern and sparring respectively for their height group.

The 11-13s had a great tournamenttoo, with Cameron Patterson winning gold for blue tag patterns and he also took a well fought bronze for sparring in his height group with Ross Chatham earning a deserved silver for sparring.

I-Kick Martial Arts would welcomes anyone for a free trial regardless of age or ability.

Contact Ross Penman on 07429 502254 or visit the website www.i-kickmartialarts.co.uk for more information.