Gold proved elusive, but Northland muay kickboxer Hayley Cassidy is pretty content with the silver medal she won at the World Association of Kickboxing World Championships.
The current New Zealand IKBF (international kickboxing federation) super lightweight champion headed to Macedonia for the worlds late last month, with no idea whatto expect from the competition, but hopeful of winning a world title in the 65kg-70kg Female K1 Division. And the 29-year-old nurse-aid, who returned to Northland recently, came very close to achieving that goal.
"The quality of competition was very high. Organisers said there were 1500 people there, from 53 different countries," Cassidy said.
"The eastern European countries dominated in every class ... from K1(ring fights) to low kick (ring fights but different rules) and Tatami (mat fights)."
After weighing in with the rest of the New Zealand team who were all male, the Whangarei kickboxer discovered on the third day there were only three people in her division.
"I had a bye in the first round so that sent me straight to the final which was a surprise and quite disappointing as I would have liked to have fought a few fights to get there ... and I had four days of waiting while the rest of the team fought in their qualifying rounds."
Cassidy, who trains at Roundhouse Kickboxing Studio with trainers Simon Haenga and David Glassy in Whangarei, had put in the hard yards after winning the NZ title in May which clinched her a spot in the WAKO Kiwi team.
It was a nerve-wracking experience heading into the ring for her final bout against a Russian competitor.
"The girl that I fought was massive and not the one I thought I saw warming up, she must have been right on 70kg - she looked about 80kg. I was pretty disadvantaged in the end being lighter after trying to aim for 65kg (to contest the 65kg and under division), and weighing in at 66kg. I was at the bottom of my weight division instead of at the top like I had planned."
The Russian dominated from the second round with big front kicks, leaving Cassidy to take home the silver medal.
"The rules were different to how we fight in New Zealand as well which were hard to get your head around. You can't grab the legs, you can only stay in a grapple for five seconds, no kidney shots ... very safe ... and any small injury like a blood nose and the fight was stopped."
The tournament was an invaluable learning experience for Cassidy, who was grateful to her sponsors and trainers for helping her get to the event.
"The experience was amazing ... meeting new people and watching the best kickboxers in the world fight."
