Ms Nicole Chircop  

Ms Liane Chircop

Ms Nicole Chircop, a fourth-year Physiotherapy student, and her sister, Ms Liane Chircop, a first-year Physics and Geosciences student, are rising fast through the ranks of Karate, as they have both placed in the Top 10 of an Online Karate World Championship.

They both practise Traditional Shotokan Karate, which the Japan Karate Association (JKA WF), the leading worldwide organisation representing this combat sport. 

Amidst the global pandemic, the first ever karate online competition was planned with the aim to provide an event where karate-ka around the world, who may be unable to train at their dojos or to travel for competitions due to COVID-19, could enjoy a competition together with JKA karate-ka everywhere.

This event involved Karate practitioners within the worldwide JKA community, training a standardized karate routine for a month and then uploading a video of their best performance for evaluation.

There were more than 1,000 participants from all around the world, including the likes of Russia, England, Australia, Canada, South Africa, Norway.

JKA Malta members got some exciting results, with Ms Liane Chircop claiming 4th place in the 19 to 21 years category, and Ms Nicole Chircop placing 8th in the 22 to 39 years category. 

Their performances can be viewed below:  

Dario Chircop Sensei, who is the President and Chief Instructor of JKA-Malta, explained that usually the World Championships have a maximum of 4 participant per category per country. In this event males and females were mixed so the categories were bigger, and there were many more than 4 participants per country as it was online and there were no limits to the number of participants. 

Such motivating results!