SOUTH Gloucestershire’s Team EPIC took a squad of 36 fighters to the KWON in North Solihull on Sunday along with almost their whole coaching team.

The sea of yellow and black dressed warriors came away top of the board with 43 medals and that included 12 gold, 16 silver and 15 bronze. The club also had many finish in fourth so that medal count could have been higher on a different day.

The fighter of the day went to Sophie Vallender who is a senior coach at the club who showed much resilience to pick up two silver medals and fighting back to back to earn them.

Special mentions also go to gold medalists: Carmen Jones, who won two golds and was also listed on the top 10 fighters of the day, Ben Jones, Molly Hershaw, Harvey Tyler, Kailem Mulligan, Daisy Humphreys, Robyn Humphreys, Katie Williams, Aaron Mountford, Brooklyn James and Oliver Hiscutt.

Further mentions must go to Sean McDonald and once again to Oliver Hiscutt for landing spinning kicks in their first ever national level competitions.

Kailem Mulligan took home a gold, silver and bronze on his first ever national level competition, while Daisy Humphreys and Robyn Humphreys returned for their first competition in a long while both taking golds.

A big mention to Jack Pollard for sticking to his guns and earning a silver in his first ever continuous-style bout and to Rakan Sabbah who lost on a split decision in the final to the very experienced Reece Phillips.

Coach Andy Cleeves said of the event: "It was amazing, we dominated the leaderboard and so many of our fighters performed on the day. Exciting times ahead!"

While coach Gio Marchese later posted up on Facebook: "Top of the table, great start to the year for Team Epic"

With only two weeks until the Watford Open Nationals, the team are straight back into training this week to prepare!