West Cork's top kickboxers bring home eight medals from Irish Open

WEST Cork Kickboxing Club had a very impressive outing at the recent WAKO (World Association of Kickboxing Organisations) World Cup Irish Open International Kickboxing Championships held in Citywest in Dublin recently.

The Irish Open is the world’s most prestigious World Cup open kickboxing championships, attracting more than 4,000 competitors, from as far afield as New Zealand, Australia and the US. The club had 12 members competing at the event in different categories, from younger cadet to senior and in various divisions from continuous contact to K1 full contact. The results were spectacular, with five golds, two silver and one bronze medal returning to West Cork.

Deirdre Begley, Lily de la Cour and Tony Stephenson, three of the club’s senior fighters, all won gold at the championships having fantastic fights in their respective divisions on their way to their victorious finals. Deirdre won gold in K1 in the ring in the -60kg category, Lily won gold in continuous contact -50kg and silver in the -55kg category and Tony won gold in the -74kg continuous category. 

The club had juniors and younger and older cadets who were competing in their first Irish Open and performed tremendously throughout the competition. Michael Collins and Deirdre Connelly were fighting in the older cadet category and both fought brilliantly to bring home gold in their respective continuous contact categories, Michael at -63kg and Deirdre at 65kg novice. Luca Rosa also had some outstanding fights on her way to the final and brought home a silver medal.

The full West Cork Kickboxing Club team consisted of Tony Stephenson, Deirdre Begley, Lily de la Cour, Michael Collins, Deirdre Connelly, Luca Rosa, Grainne Begley, Ian O’Flynn, Gearoid Debarbouille, Luc Cronin, Cian Collins and Mathew Cronin. 

Ian Kingston, head coach, was delighted with a medal haul of five golds, two silver and a bronze, and even more delighted with all his fighters’ performances over the three days of competition.