A kick-boxer from Prince George has arrived back from Niagara Falls, Ontario with two silver medals around her neck after competing in the WAKO (Wacko) Canada National Championships.
Nicole Sawin, who operates Connections Mixed Martial Arts Studio competed in the Kick Light category, which is for fighters competing in the under 55-kilogram weight class.
Sawin told MyPGNow.com it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to attend the event.
“It was a pretty last-minute decision to go. We had an event get cancelled in BC – we have sparse opportunities for kick boxing in our province and we are trying to build up WAKO here.”
“It was kind of go to Nationals or not do anything. We pulled together a team from BC from a couple of different clubs and we all decided to push to make it.”
Sawin added the results even surprised her self as one of the fighters she was matched up against had 17 career fights.
“They just have so much more opportunities and experience out east and being able to hold my own against those kinds of opponents was very cool,” added Sawin.
“The expectations were pretty low on my performance. I knew the calibre at nationals was going to be very high so I was not going in and expecting to win any of my fights.”
Originally from Fort Nelson, Sawin’s first athletic sojourn was Tae-Kwan-Do – the transition from one combat sport to another did come with some small adjustments.
“There was a women’s only kick boxing program focusing on fitness and cardio that was started up a couple of years ago and that kind of made me fall in love with kick boxing, which is a higher impact than Tae-Kwan-Do is.”
While Sawin has plans to continue to elevate her performance, building up the next crop of fighters from the city at the grassroots level is a challenge she is glad to undertake.
“I love competing but a big part of it to is that I want to build opportunities for my athletes to be able to go in and compete and to have more opportunities available in BC for the next generation upcoming.”