Warriors triumph at Kerry Open
by admin on Jan.31, 2010, under News
With an early start on Sunday January 24th, the Warrior Tae Kwon Do team descended on Tralee, Co. Kerry for the IUTF Kerry Open Championships.
The team, consisting of Aoife Sheehan, Mark Tanner, Conor Carmody, Dwayne Crowley, Jamie Lawton, Erik Hilmer, Michael Carmody, Claire Wilcox and Alex Gazzaniga faced stiff opposition from students from all over the country. With all students competing in their respective sparring sections, the Warriors held their own against some hard-hitting opponents.
Aoife Sheehan made a huge impression on the day, not only taking 1st in sparring but also 2nd in patterns, performing the pattern Kwang-gae. Dunmanway’s Mark Tanner made short work of his sparring section taking 1st following very impressive displays in each round. Clonakilty club’s Conor Carmody fought very intelligently to take 1st in sparring in a very large section, while his father Michael, in his first national competition, was unlucky to miss out on the prizes but impressed all watching with an outstanding performance and a punch that could knock a horse!
Recently promoted 2nd Dan Dwayne Crowley took his first piece of sparring silverware since moving up to the senior sections with a hard-earned 3rd in Men’s Heavyweight sparring; battling through a number of rounds with some of Ireland’s hardest hitters. The Warriors dominated the Junior Black Belt sparring with Jamie Lawton and Erik Hilmer taking 2nd and 3rd respectively in the same sparring category.
With this being first of a number of competitions already lined up for the first half of this year, it looks like we’re going to need bigger trophy cabinets!
Some more photos can be found at http://robtkd.jalbum.net/
