Golden girls!

CHAMPION . . . gold-medal winners from Cobra Kan Karate Do Club, Kirsty Moore (front, left), Tanya O’Donnell and Jessica Shipman, are pictured with senior instructor Gill Leicester (back, left) and club founder Helen O’Donnell.

KARATE:

THREE girls from Cobra Kan Karate Do reigned in Spain.

Jessica Shipman and Kirsty Moore, from Limeside, and Tanya O’Donnell, of Rochdale, won gold in the team Kata section at the World Karate and Kickboxing Council World Championships in Cadiz.

Representing Great Britain, the trio beat Canada in the final — after earlier overcoming a team made up of two of their mothers.

Senior instructor Gill Lester, mother of Jessica, and Cobra Kan club founder Helen O’Donnell, mum to Tanya, ended up with a bronze. Helen also claimed bronze in the singles Kata.

A dozen teams, consisting of between two and five members, set out chasing gold, with the leading four on the judges’ scorecards going through to the final of the non-contact discipline.

Two of the girls were on the verge of giving up the sport as they did not believe they were capable of mixing it with the world’s best.

Cobra Kan, who train at St James Church Hall, in Shaw, and Holy Family School, Limeside, have enjoyed plenty of success lately.

As well as impressing at the WKC British Championships, the club have collected medals in the WKC Open and at the Martial Arts Illustrated Open Championships.