Maria Gladkih wins BRONZE at Jr. Karate Pan American Championships in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Martin Gissa narrowly misses a medal…

It’s a wrap!!!

To say the least it was the highest level tournament and the highest results our dojo has ever reached, but we strongly believe this is just the beginning of something much greater ahead!!!

Bronze medal forMaria Gladkih (12-13 yrs old girls, -47kg). Martin Gissa (14-15 yrs old, -57 kg) had 3 spectacular fights, he was leading in scores 3:0 against silver medalist of the division but got disqualified within the last few seconds of the match.

Team USA got 3rd place in total medal count. Amazing performance by every athlete, medal or not – you all did great by being here, being on the team and representing your country on the tatami and outside of it! ;
Huge thank you to all the coaches of Team USA! Maile Chinen-Koncal, Dustin Baldis, John Limcaco, Randy Word, Miguel Ochoa, Akira Fukuda.

These result would not be possible without you, your motivation and guidance was a huge defining factor in such a great performance by all athletes! Shout out to head coach Brody Burns for leading this huge team of young individuals from different parts of the country with different origins and cultures, – you made everybody feel united and inspired by the same goal! 

Elizabeth Sottile – if anybody ever organized an event of 10+ people they should realize that organizing this many juniors on the team plus all of their parents/chaperones/coaches takes tons of effort and professionalism – thank you! The rest of the team stuff – photographer, doctor and anybody else we are missing – we appreciate it a lot! Our own photographer Jelena Gladkih – you are the best, we hope you know it! Congrats on your daughter’s bronze! Thank you to IMA Dojo Hanshi Cyrus Madani and Sensei Fariba Madani for warmly hosting our athletes at your training, it benefited Maria and Martin’s performance and mental preparedness!

To everyone who financially supported this trip – thank you all so much, it helped a lot!!! To all of you who were following our updates and kept sending us your energy, words of encouragement and love – you guys are incredible! We are so lucky to have you as our team behind the team!!!
Domo arigato! Oss.

…and of course we got to enjoy Ecuador: