Dani Auberger wins gold at world championships held in Austria

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By Rachel Auberger

Dani Auberger, a Sparta native, traveled to Bregenz, Austria, this month where she won gold at the World Karate and Kickboxing Union’s world championships.

Auberger has been competing as a member of the United States national karate team for the past six years but said she knew this year would be the hardest yet.

“I turned 18 this year, so that means I had to move into the adult divisions,” she explained. “The talent in these divisions is deep. There are a lot of great athletes with a lot of experience.”

Despite the challenge, Auberger is returning home with 11 medals, including a gold in one of her fighting categories.

Auberger explained that each category, forms with weapons and forms without weapons as well as multiple styles of fighting, has its own unique set of rules and criteria. She said keeping up with each category’s allowable techniques required skills, and rule changes can be time consuming, but it is something at which she excels.

“I considered dropping a few divisions and competing in less categories now that I am in the adult divisions,” she admitted. “But my coaches and mentors told me not to. They said that they feel I can have as much success in the adult divisions as I did in the juniors.”

Auberger holds the record for most medals in a single game as a junior (2018) and is coming home as this year’s most decorated American athlete with 11 medals. As for the adult record at one game, she said she will have to check into that, but that now it is definitely on her list of goals.

When asked which category was her favorite, she did not hesitate to answer.

“Any category that includes fighting,” Auberger laughed. “I love to fight. The other categories are fun, and they help to improve my technique as well as my stamina, but fighting is why I come.”

She went on to say that one of her favorite moments of this year’s competition was getting to team up with some of her Austrian friends and form a team that was selected to fight in a nighttime gala.

“It was so much fun,” she said. “We were fighting in a tag-team style event in the main boxing ring under all the lights in front of a standing- room-only crowd and on live television. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

As well as being selected to fight in the prime-time gala, Auberger was also selected as one of five athletes to perform during both the opening ceremonies for the championships and again before the main event during the gala.

“That was a lot of fun, too,” she said. “I was chosen, along with another American, two Germans, and an Italian, to perform a forms and weapons demonstration. The energy they brought to the games was amazing. It was such a great group of athletes to work with.”

As for what’s next, Auberger laughed, “More of the same: training, competing, teaching.”

She plans to stay in Europe for another month where she will continue to train, compete at international events, and teach classes and seminars, while sharing her skills with other athletes who have the same passion as she does.

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