10/25/2026
It was an amazing blur of a day for our Team Unity athletes in Argentina yesterday!!!
For those who don’t know, Panam nationals functions the same way as world championships, where there are two different tournaments in one competition weekend. On Thursday and Friday is the “champion” competition, where if you win, you win the title of Panam champion, and on Saturday and Sunday is the regular tournament where you earn points like at a regular tournament.
Well on Friday, was the three person team sparring competition and our athletes switched up teams a little (the rules about team composition are a little different down there) Ms. Sophia Smith and her team got first place in combat! While Ms. Isabella Smith, Ms. Adelaide Smith, and Mr. Graham Smith took second in combat! Having our two teams face off against each other in the finals was super cool!! It also shows how high level our competitors are to make it through both sides of the bracket and meet in the finals 😁
Team ATA-USA competition was supposed to be Friday but got moved to Saturday, this is the international team sparring competition where teams are built with five fighters instead of three. We had 8 of our team members fight for team ATA-USA. The elite team (18-39) with Ms. Isabella, Ms. Adelaide, Ms. Sophia, Mr. Rowan, and Mrs. Rowan, took first in team combat and team sparring!! The varsity team (15-17) with Mr. Graham and Mr. Abraham, took first place in team combat and team sparring! The legends team (40+) with Mr. McBride, took first place in team sparring and second in team combat! It’s super amazing for our school to have such a large number of athletes fighting for our country, representing our team on a whole different continent!! Today is the final day of regular competition, we can’t wait to hear all their stories when they get back!!!
