Lindsay eyeing fifth consecutive double gold in Brisbane

AKINO Lindsay was the toast of last year’s International Sport Kickboxing Association’s Amateur Members Association (ISKA AMA) World championships in Vienna, Austria, honoured by the organisation during the opening ceremony for his world-record feat of completing eight consecutive double gold medals in Munich, Germany in 2023.

Lindsay showed his appreciation by adding another double gold to his collection, entering this year’s October 15-19 ISKA AMA World Championships in Brisbane, Australia as a tatami (mat) kickboxing legend at 30 years old.

Standing in excess of six feet tall with 11 ISKA AMA individual gold medals to his name, having won gold and silver on debut in Portugal 2015, Lindsay, who first completed the double on home soil in 2018 at the Montego Bay Convention Centre, holds the unique distinction of a triple gold, having also won team gold at home in continuous sparring.

After missing 2019 and the COVID-19 years of 2020 and 2021, Lindsay returned with a vengeance for Turkey 2022 and Munich 2023, establishing an ISKA AMA world record, which he broke in Vienna.

Lindsay’s coach and mentor, Jason McKay, who has guided the Waterhouse native’s martial arts journey, starting as a competitor for St George’s College in the McKay Security Jamaica

Taekwondo High School League, believes his protege still has room for improvement.

McKay is confident Lindsay will soon conquer other martial arts disciplines, similar to his former

Jamaica combined martial arts teammate, karate fighter Kenneth Edwards, the country’s first and only taekwondo representative at the Olympics, London 2012.

“No ISKA AMA World Championship is easy,” McKay pointed out. “You’re taking on the best of seven continents. It is no joke matter out there,” he said, adding that Lindsay’s recognition last year, by way of an award, wasn’t by chance.

Meanwhile, gunning for a fifth double gold, Lindsay said he has long put Austria and awards behind him as he seeks to put his record on a pedestal, as Usain Bolt has done with his world records at 100- and 200-metre sprints in athletics.

“It was actually very good to be recognised. It is a very, very difficult tournament to win, very physical. So the fact that I was recognised, it shows that Jamaica, on the world stage of kickboxing, we are very dominant.

“My focus now is to push my record beyond reach. My countryman, Richard Stone, might not have as many consecutive double gold but he is pretty close with eight individual gold medals to my 11. I cannot leave anything to chance out there,” said Lindsay.

Jamaica’s six-man team, comprising Lindsay, Stone, Nicholas Dusard, Adrian Moore, Nicholai Reid and Sharic Bowen, start their medal quests in Brisbane on Thursday, October 16.