RECAP – 2014 AAU JUNIOR OLYMPIC GAMES KARATE

Written by: Amanda Szylin  

The Karate portion of the 2014 AAU Junior Olympic Games were during the last two days of 11 day event. More than 100 boys and girls, ranging from 6-17 years old, made the trip to Des Moines to compete for the gold medal.

Several of the females competing in the Karate competition went home with some major hardware! Stephanie Hillyer took home three gold medals, while Leah Hanacek, Ashley Leon and Alyssa Crane each went home with two gold and a silver medal in Youth Kobudo, Kata and Kumite in their respective age divisions. Ellie Wunderlich also took home two gold medals. Among the female competition, the state of Illinois was the most represented with 35 gold, silver and bronze medals. 

Among the male competition, several boys went home with more than one medal. Keyan Payton took home three medals, along with Chase Polley, Micah Holmes, Luca Galvez, Matthew Hillyer, Elijah Chang and William Tilkemeier. Within the competition between the boys, 66 of the people who took home medals were from Illinois. Indiana was also well-represented with 16 medals and Florida had 11.

We hope everyone had a great time and we look forward to see you all again next year! Congratulations to everyone!

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