Fighters excel at world champs

FOUR Bendigo Fight Centre athletes have returned home with medals from the World Kickboxing Association World Championships in Bali.

Jamie Marek and Caleb Heffernan both picked up gold in the boxing and mixed martial arts disciplines respectively, and Taylor Jelbart and Jacob Clarke came back with silver in mauy thai and boxing.

BFC coach Lucas Allen said he was proud of the fighters and their efforts in unknown conditions.

“They were really high-level fights, like very high-level,” he said. “As a coach, I couldn’t have asked for anything more.

“Their first time overseas and my guys all did pretty damn good, even the guys that got silver, I was so impressed with them, they could have easily got the nod it was just so close.

“We ended up facing fighters from New Zealand and Mexico and Iran and each nation sort of has its own style and each state within those nations have its own style as well, so it’s challenging.”

Gold medallists Marek said he faced some great fighters and the win set him up for more important fights in the future.

“I just had to expect I was going to be against the best and to be fair, the fighters I did fight were really good fighters,” he said.

“It was a challenge because you don’t know what you’re going to come up against and you have to be ready for anything. So, that was my mindset and it paid off in the end.

“I’ve got a state title flight coming up in three weeks in the heavyweight division.

“I got home and straight off the plane, straight back into the gym, straight back to work. Just preparing for that now and not really looking back, just looking forward to bigger and better things.”

Meanwhile, Jelbart, who finished with a mauy thai silver along with sore ribs and liver said it was a great experience to build on.

“I was a bit disappointed at first,” he said.  “But it was a tough competition and looking back and seeing what my opponents had accomplished previously it’s not too bad, I guess.

“It was cool and was a really good experience, I would definitely do it again. I just have to go back to the drawing board and keep working.

“I want to go on to bigger and better things. So, it’s time to heal up, recover and get back into it as soon as I can.”