Young karate star smashes his GCSEs

A YOUNG karate star collected a string of top grades after smashing his GCSE exams.

Ripon Grammar School student Samarth Dasarathi, who has competed at a national level and achieved his second level black belt last July, achieved ten grade 9s and one grade 8.

The 16-year-old, who is also learning Japanese in his spare time to give him further insight into the martial art, has been juggling five hours a week karate training in Harrogate, alongside guitar and drum lessons, with his studies.

Samarth, who plans to study maths, physics, chemistry and further maths at A-level, says he’s absolutely delighted with his results: “A big thank you to all my teachers. I’m looking forward to starting sixth form now.”

The teenager, from Burton Leonard, who took his first karate lesson aged five, hopes to take a degree in mechanical engineering at university.

He was recognised as an outstanding physics student at the University of York and Ogden Trust annual Physicist of the Year awards last year.

He regularly competes at events all over the country and, while many competitions were put on hold during the pandemic, attended a number of Japanese seminars over Zoom from Tokyo: “I was training at midnight (due to time zone differences) some days to get as much out of it as possible.”

Samarth, who also teaches younger students karate, is also a member of RGS’s Big Band and guitar ensemble.