Miami Lakes resident Erick Lamelas is a full time student at Florida International University and a Karate Martial artist. He started learning karate at 6 years old and could now possibly be a future Olympian.
Throughout his years practicing karate, he has achieved these accolades: 3-time PKF Jr. Pan-American Champion, 12-time USA NKF National Champion, 6-time Team USA Member, 3-time US Open Champion, 5-time AAU National Champion, 3-time Junior Olympic Champion, and 5th Place in WKF World Championships.
In his most recent competition, he participated at the 2016 PKF Pan-American Championship in Guayaquil, Ecuador on August 27, and won his third Pan-American Gold Medal and fifth Pan-American medal.
Due to his performance in this competition and by also winning first place in both the 18-20 and 18-34 heavyweight divisions in the NKF National Team Trials, he was invited by the USA Sr. Karate Team to represent the country at the 2016 Sr. WKF World Championship in Linz, Austria from October 22 to 31.
Unfortunately, the USA team will not be paying any of his expenses for the competition. For that reason, he has created a GoFundMe campaign at gofundme.com/2tx4tyvb for anyone generous enough to help him with him journey.
Karate recently was accepted as an official sport for the Olympics in 2020 in Tokyo and Lamelas is one of the top prospects to represent the USA.
Lamelas said, “Watching the Olympics this year has only increased the fire under my passion for karate as my ultimate goal is to become an Olympic Champion.”
Follow him on Facebook under Erick Lamelas and Erick Lamelas Karate and on Instagram at handle @ericklamelas.