New Zealand wins medals at 2008 Commonwealth Championships
It was a hard fought series of matches for New Zealand to come away with an impressive tally of wins and 4 medals in Winnipeg Canada at the 2008 Commonwealth Championships. Overall New Zealand's team of seven won 1 Silver, and 4 Bronze medals. With the Canadian's clearly dominating the event with a large team, New Zealand's players still managed to beat a number of Australian and Canadian team members in the individual full-contact fighting competition.
NZ Olympian, Matthew Beach won silver overall after losing the final to Canada 6-3. However it was a hard fought run to the final, with Matthew also having to face his team mate Dafydd Sanders, in the preliminaries, winning that match by Golden-Point in the sudden death play-off after Dafydd was leading right through to the end of the third. Fellow NZ team heavyweight Michael Marsh won the bronze after 3 tough matches including beating Australia. While Dafydd Sanders won his first match impressively with a big points win over another Canadian heavyweight, and then faced Australia in the repocharge with the win going to the Australian.
In the men's middleweight division, Nicolas Dorman won two out of his three matches to come away with the bronze, and in the lightweight division, Alan Brien had a similar run, winning two out of three to get the bronze and beat Australia along the way. Hayley Schofield in the female middleweight division still managed to secure a bronze after losing her first fight to a much taller Canadian opponent, and Diana Kasad lost her first match against Canada in the female bantamweight division and missed out on the repocharge after her opponent failed to make the finals.
The New Zealand Team management were very satisfied with the teams overall results and this was the first international that the New Zealand team has competed in where the new electronic body protectors have been used. Five members of the New Zealand team will stay on in Canada for another three days to attend a training camp with the Canadian and Australian National teams before returning to New Zealand for the Oceania Championships in Auckland on the 6th and 7th December.
