Lindsay, Stone lead all-star martial arts squad to Germany

JAMAICA hope to better its best-ever medal haul overseas at an International Sport Kickboxing Association Amateur Members Association (ISKA AMA) World Championships when they travel to Munich, Germany, to participate in the 2023 Kickboxing and Muay Thai contest, October 18-22.

A tatami (mat) and ring-fighting championship, Jamaica twice hosted the ISKA AMA tatami events at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, the last being 2018, topping honours in the continuous and point divisions, with 118 medals - 27 gold, 35 silver and 56 bronze - bettered only by England’s 126.

However, their best showing on the road since team-leader Jason McKay’s first foray - winning bronze in the Netherlands 2012 - was the country’s seven-medal haul at the 2019 championships in Cork City, Ireland, a major feat, considering only three fighters had travelled for the event.

Returning as coach, McKay leads a full-strength team of Jamaica’s most successful ISKA AMA fighters, headed by Akino Lindsay and Richard Stone, intent being to return home with eight gold medals.

Lindsay is a two-time double gold medal winner and defending champion in points and continuous sparring, first achieving the feat in Jamaica 2018, which he repeated at the Daima Sports Complex in Kemer, Turkey, last year, moving past Stone as Jamaica’s most decorated ISKA AMA fighter, having won continuous-sparring titles in Portugal 2015 and Greece 2017.

Stone also has an outstanding record at the championships, completing a hat-trick of double-gold performances in 2019 at the Neptune Stadium in Cork City, Ireland.

Former champion, Nicholas Dussard, who was among the team that that bagged five gold, a silver and a bronze in Ireland, will also be hunting gold, joined by Delano Francis and 2018 world bronze medallist Nicholai Reid.

Since returning to international competitions, Jamaica’s Combined Martial Arts Team has won four world medals, three gold and one bronze. Lindsay’s double-gold in Turkey, added to Dussard topping the ESPN Night of Champions taekwon-do battle at the 2022 United States Open and bronze won at the International Taekwon-Do Federation’s World Cup in Koper, Slovenia.

Having fielded a full squad for the 2023 US Open, McKay believes the combined team have gathered the best of the best for Munich.

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

“There are eight gold medals available to us at this tournament and I want all of them,“ he said, especially banking on Lindsay, who has won the heavyweight continuous-sparring crown at three ISKA AMA world championships.

McKay also believes that Reid, who rose to the occasion to capture a US Open gold medal in July, is in peak form to overcome stamina issues, which have dogged him many times over.

“Reid was on fire at the US Open and will be likewise at the world championships,” McKay assured, doubling as coach and sponsor of Jamaica’s five-man squad, the smallest of 50 countries participating at the championships.

Jamaica’s small contingent, McKay said, was again forced by sparse sponsorship but noted that the island last year emerged the most productive participating country in Ireland 2019, averaging two medals per person, including gold in the team-fighting division, which they had also won in Montego Bay.

ISKA Jamaica oversees the sport of kickboxing locally, through McKay Security, including sponsorship of local martial arts championships. The organisation is also the controlling arm of the Jamaica combined martial arts team and sponsors the Jamaican contingent to the annual ISKA United States Open in Orlando, Florida.