Jamaica’s Everlast junior combined martial arts team and senior team invitee Nicholai Reid won eight medals, including four gold at the Ultimate Taekwon-Do Championships in New Jersey at the weekend.

Jamaica College’s Tahj Hewitt won patterns gold and doubled his tally by powering past Raymond Young to land blue-to-red belt sparring honours.

Another JC student, Joshane Thompson, also struck gold, showing incredible form to defeat Luke Collismo in the final of 17-18 black belt sparring following his silver in patterns.

Calabar’s Tye McKay also won two medals, topped by gold in junior black belt sparring, beating Elliot Wehol 3-1. He won his second medal of the championships by stepping up to the 17-18 sparring division where he won bronze in semi-final action against Collismo.

Reid maintained his strong early season form, winning gold in patterns before rushing into the open black belt division where he defeated Andrew Lee in the semis.

However, the emerging Jamaican fighter went down to Mark Akta in the final after extending the International Taekwon-Do Federation (ITF)world champion to overtime.

Coach Jason McKay said he was proud of the young fighters and pointed to Reid’s improvement.

“This was a warm-up for the ITF Pan-Am Championship. Joshane and Tye showed they are willing to try new things necessary for them to do well,” he said.

“Nicholai has improved and shows promise, but needs to be more attacking, whereas Tahj did well, but needs to change his approach if he plans to win at Pan-Am.

“Overall, it was a good performance, which demonstrated we are preparing for the future,” he added.