LEG UP! Premjit Sen (in black on right) cheers on his band of young karatekas. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha

Hours of practice on the hard surface of a rooftop or on the uneven surface of the local park in Salt Lake, shunned by spotlight and sponsors. The results are just in from Germany. Nine golds, eight silvers and 13 bronzes in an international meet, lifting India to the second spot in the medals tally. Forget flop cricket superstars, hail our home-grown karate heroes.

Fifteen karatekas, 13 of them from Calcutta, had travelled to Stuttgart for the ISKA European Cup 2006. Of them, 12 were under 16, the youngest yet to cut his sixth birthday cake. “Japan may be the Mecca of karate, but the Europeans and Americans are the ones to beat now,” said Premjit Sen, under whom the team had trained.

Most team members had to foot the Rs 75,000 tour bill themselves. All they got as a leg up before the tourney was a pair of Bata shoes each. But once they took to the judo mat (one costs Rs 3 lakh and so is out of bounds at the Salt Lake training centre) at Sporthalle, all that ceased to matter.

A threesome even participated in synchronised kata — a mix of offensive and defensive moves on the mat — without having practised to any piece of music before. “We asked the organisers for any racy track and just flowed with the music, following the shihan (chief instructor) who formed the tip of our triangular formation. But we were so good that the president of the International Sports Kickboxing Association (ISKA) later sought us out. It didn’t matter that we were hearing the music for the first time,” smiled 21-year-old Swati Agarwal, sporting her double gold and silver.

The tots, too, landed a rich booty, including a 1-2-3-4 in the under-11 kata demonstration.

Two days have passed since the little champions have landed. “Forget funds, we have not even seen a single petal of a flower,” smiles Sen, pointing out how funds and flashbulbs follow every move made by a cricketer as well as singers winning TV contests. That’s what fires up the nanchaku-wielding trainer to host an international tournament in Calcutta next year. “That may mean selling off my utensils, but at least my students who could not afford to travel to Stuttgart will get to take part,” said Sen.