Tokon Kai Karate Club collected plenty of winnings when they travelled to Las Vegas, the gambling capital of the world, for the 5th Funakoshi World Championships.

The squad, who train at Bromfords Sports Centre, Wickford, was led by coach and chief instructor Steve Roberts, who was a defending world champ last year.

He had high hopes for the squad of 15 students ranging from six to 37.

They had been training extremely hard in England for months with special lessons on top of their usual four or five hours a week training.

Competition was over two days - kata (forms) on the first and kumite (fighting) the second.

The first day got off to a flying start with young James Butterfield winning a gold in the junior coloured belt section.

In the next events brother and sister Lewis and Amy White won gold in their respective junior brown belt sections.

Later in the day their dad, Steve White, also won in the adult brown belt section.

In the afternoon David Roberts won a gold in the cadet male black belt section. Then Steve Roberts himself won a gold to add to last year's win.

His section is one of the hardest in the competition as it is 4th Dan black belts and above, which means most competing men would have at least 20 years experience.