Well, this 20 years trip back in time brought up some great memories from The First International Swedish Tournament F.I.S.T.
This tournament was held in Uppsala, and was organized two times, 2004 and 2005. This tournament was organized by Perry Segerqvist, a Fullcontact profile in Sweden. Segerqvist had several merits from different styles, as Kyokushin, K-1, Thai Boxing etc.
It was several things that made this interesting. The line up was a mix from several Karate Fullcontact styles, mainly Kyokushin and Ashihara. The set of rules was close to traditional full-contact Karate – but instead of warnings in Japanese, one had yellow and red card. The tatami was only 7×7 meters (!!) and the speaker did really heat up the the spectators!
For me, taking the trip from Norway (together with member of our Dojo Ringerike KK) – had an idea that this would be slightly difference from what I was used to see. Correct! A very entertaining tournament, not large in number – but intense and a lot of knock outs.
Sweden and Denmark had class fighters in their line up. Sweden with Jimmie Collin, Andreas Almén, Anna Solberg, Fredrik Månsson, Martin Aparicio. Denmark Christina Petersen, Brian Jakobsen, Ole Mejlshede. Sweden Ashihara with local Dojo represented: Per Backman, and some more – sorry that I do not have the names…
Info about this tournament does not exist as far as I know. (One can find a little her and there, but not much) Per Backman (may he rest in peace) made a great impression with strong fighting and a brutal knock out, clean headkick – early in the tournament against his opponent from Portugal.
By the way, pictures taken with and old camera at the tournament from the tribune.
If I’m not mistaking. Backman fought later on a another powerhouse. Andreas Almèn. I remember that this fight was very hard and intense – Almèn taking the challenge and the victory in the fight, and ending up in the final with Jimmie Collin. Collins did also win the final and the tournament middleweight.
In the lightweight final men we saw a danish fighter vs Martin Aparicio / Sweden. Fighter Magazine posted results and have Simon Østa as the winner of the lightweight category.. that said – I’m not quite sure of that – because Østa use to fight in the middleweight, and I (far back in my head) tough that Østa fought Jimmie Collin – and that it was Ole Mejlshede who fought in the lightweight final vs Martin Aparicio BUT this is only speculations – so if someone have the facts, fill in!
Brian Jacobsen / Denmark – another well known name when it comes to full-contact Karate – was this time (as far as I remember) not significantly threatened in the heavy weight category – and did win the category.
In the women’s category (I think this two categories became one) we got to see a demanding final between Christina Petersen / Denmark and Anna Solberg / Sweden – in this case, Anna Solberg became the champion.
Well, that’s some real digging in the archive! Really funny to do things like that, because it brings up a lot of memories. For my Dojo it was a really eyeopener! They had not been exposed for this before, and after this experience it was a lot easier to give instructions – because now they (fighters) really knew what we was talking about.
S.Haukedalen