MEDIEVAL COMBAT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS

Urgent Call to All British Expats – Your Country Needs You

Between May 1st and May 4th 2014 Great Britain is sending a team to the IMCF Full Contact Medieval Combat World Championships at Castillo Belmonte in Belmonte, Cuenca, a beautifully city to the east of Madrid

Great Britain is proving to be a force to be reckoned with in the new adrenaline fueled sport of Full Contact Medieval Combat.

The sport began to take shape 15 years ago in Eastern Europe, where medieval re-enactors looked to find a way to truly re-live medieval combat. It is a revival of the medieval tournament fighting that was used to train and hone the skills of knights in the Middle Ages.

The teams fight in teams of 5vs5 and 16vs16, where object, as it was in medieval times, is to knock the opposing team to the floor.

The fighters wear fully authentic armour, (up to 30 kgs) and wield authentic weapons (rounded edges.). Certain shapes of weapon are also prohibited for the sake of safety. There are Marshals and rules, similar to most martial arts for the sake of safety.

An opponent is out of the fight and considered “dead” once they have three points of contact with the ground. Once down they remain in place until the end of the bout. The bout/round is finished when all the opposing team have been floored or one team has a 3 or more fighters left, and the opposing team has only 1.

The sport has been holding a world championships in some form or other for the last 5 years and Great Britain entered for the first time in May 2013. Great Britain1 came 8th being knocked out in the Quarter finals by World Champions Russia.

This Quarter final place won them the cup for “Best Debuting Nation”. Great Britain has been fighting at international tournaments since 2012. To the end of 2013 they had expanded their experience, adding two 3rd places, a 2nd and a 1st place from four international tournaments.

They began 2014 with a powerhouse tournament win in the world cup warm up tournament “The Rise Of The Knights II” held in Bernau, Germany. TeamGB1 won all 7 of the bouts 2-0. TeamGB2 “The Mongolian Massive” came 5th.

The World Championships are being held over 4 days in the iconic and beautifully restored Spanish castle of Castillo Belmonte, the location for the filming of El Cid. 400+ knights from at least 16 countries from Europe, USA, Japan, Argentina and New Zealand will be competing to become world champions.

The castle will be transformed into a vision of the medieval tournament with a range of displays, musicians, traditional medieval markets and encampments as a back drop to the competition.

Great Britain has a real chance of bettering last year’s Quarter Final place in the 5vs5 and the sport has now grown enough here for us to enter a team in the 16vs16 category for the first time.

Here’s a link to the BBC3 documentary “Knight Club” that followed the team to their first world championships in 2013.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01p410n

If you can make it for all or any of the 4 days the cheers and support of a “home” crowd will really give the team a boost! If you do come up make sure you seek out the team, say hello and get some pics with the lads.

Book tickets here http://oberonsaas.com/castillodebelmonte

Some Footage of the Fighters

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z92TAiH35Dk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrgJV_4Xgn4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=754mqzILFrw

Filed under: http://www.theleader.info/article/43027/

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