With all the medals, Jamie Kock, from Courtrai Primary has raked in from several national and international karate championships, he is undoubtedly the local karate kid to watch out for.
He started participating in the sport when he was only 3 years old. Since then, for the past decade, Jamie has been actively involved in karate. At the tender age of 6 he started to compete and also qualified to represent the Boland region at the Goju-Kai South African Championship.
According to his mother, Rochelle Kock, he first started competing with Karate South Africa in 2016 and has dominated in his kumite (fighting) division ever since. Besides karate, Jamie also takes part in other sport codes at his school.
“He lives for his sports, and plays first team rugby, cricket and hockey (captain of the hockey 1st team 2022),” his mother said. “He was selected for the School Boland Regional Hockey Team, but had to withdraw due to National karate commitments.”
The Grade 7 pupil is very dedicated to the sports he loves, but also to his academics. He works hard to remain an excellent sportsman and a balanced scholar, while also participating at national and international sporting events. This is why he was chosen as Paarl Post’s September sport star.
“In 2018 he won his first National Gold Medal at the Karate South Africa Championship and was ranked number 1 in South Africa,” Kock said. “Afterwards he has been ranked in the top 3.”
This year, Jamie was crowned SA champion in the 12-13 boys kumite u-55 kg category at the Karate South Africa National Championship. He received a gold medal for his performance.
Another highlight for him this year was when he received his Protea colours for karate in January. Jamie also got the opportunity to represent the country, as part of the Protea team, at three international events this year.
In May he participated in the Southern Africa Karate Championships that were hosted in Durban. Jamie received a gold medal after competing against countries such as Botswana, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Angola.
In June he took part in the World Karate Federation (WKF) Youth Cup in Croatia. Another high point in Jamie’s karate journey is that he was able to represent the country in Birmingham at the 10th Commonwealth Championship, where 18 countries participated in.
“He reached the finals and lost to India to secure a very deserving silver medal,” said Kock.
Although Jamie has achieved so much already, he is determined to do better with every performance. And he is always willing to put in the hours to train.
His mother added: “It has been a long road of blood, sweat and tears, long hard hours of training, endless travelling all over the country for competitions, provincially and nationally, but we are proud that he can reap the fruits after all this time.”
