Kickstart to glory for SMA fighters

Nelson’s SMA kickboxers continue to impress on the world stage, earning praise from some of the best coaches in the sport.

A team of four fighters and coach Sallie McArdle travelled to Europe to compete in the Hungarian Kickboxing World Cup in June, bringing home five medals.

The NZ-SMA tean had Summer Puklowski and Joseph Hill representing in both the novice and advanced junior divisions, as well as in all 3 tatami disciplines.

The next day saw the senior advanced divisions where the team had Lily Sinclair and Miiguel Nunez taking part.

Having represented New Zealand at the World Championships last December, it meant even though Miiguel and Lily had no previous experience in one of their disciplines, they could not enter the novice sections and had to dive straight into advanced.

Intending to turn professional in the near future, Miiguell was in an open division and held his own against tough competition having also fought up a weight division alongside his own.

Meeting ranked fighters from Ukraine, Ireland, Turkey, and Slovakia, he had the hardest draw of any of the local fighters, says Sallie.

“[He was] holding his own but ultimately being pipped constantly because of reach advantage, [which] meant Miiguel now realises the importance of distance and timing, along with keeping weight.

“Miiguel only narrowly lost out on the medals in some of his disciplines, but has come away with massive experience that can only stand to [help] him when he moves into ring fighting this year.”

Alongside a bronze medal in the light contact for Lily, she also took some strong learnings home from some experienced opposition.

Having shown her ability, Sallie says Lily has the ability and talent to continue to grow and earn a ranking in kickboxing.

“Lily went on to take a bronze in the Light contact, losing to Spain, simply due to her lack of experience.

“The Spanish fighter was certainly not more skilled but knew how to work her distance to keep Lily away. . . however, with a little more competition under her belt, this won’t be effective with Lily for much longer.”

Summer was the first one in the team to get a medal, showing fantastic skill, timing her combinations and defence very well to win and advance to the medal stages.

A narrow loss to Hungary saw her settle for silver, with Summer performing well in her other novice divisions to secure another silver and bronze.

Joseph, in his first international event, had to move up a full weight class with no one in his division despite over 3000 participants from about 65 countries taking part in the event.

Despite the setback, he was unlucky not to get the win as minor errors cost him on countback after leading on the scoreboard to end the fight.

With only two fighters in his novice points division, he was automatically into the finals and was unlucky to not come away with gold after a late comeback fell just one point short.
Unfortunately in his Kick Light division, Joseph suffered a concussion in the last 15 seconds of his first fight and had a mandatory 6 weeks stand down from any contact.

Sallie says the continued improvements of her fighters earned recognition from some of the best coaches and kickboxing gyms in the world and has started to flow down through the club’s other members.

She intends to take the biggest team the club has ever had to Oceanias in Australia later this year.