Irish kickboxers with a serious medal haul at the World Championship
Ireland have won 15 bronze. 7 silver and 10 gold so far at the WAKO Junior World Championship and we still have nine finalists to fight today.
Yesterday started off with musical forms and Ireland had 2 representatives today in the older cadet divisions, 13-15 age group. JJ Battell and Emily Foley both secured silver for their country.
First up for Ireland in the fighting disciplines were Áine Leonard in light contact, and Nathan Tait in point fighting. Both fighters were up for the challenge and with both fights ending within seconds of each other, Ireland had two new world champions.
Next up was Luke Smith in light contact, and he had the supporters biting their nails as he went punch for punch and kick for kick and took the victory and Ireland's third fighting gold.
The first defeat in the finals came with Niall Carroll who was leading coming to the end of a tight fight, but was penalised for holding and deducted 3 points which saw him lose out on a very tight split decision giving him a silver medal position on the podium.
Karyna Nikitina was up then in the first of her 2 finals of the day. No stranger to success on a world stage, Karyna defeated her Austrian opponent with a 3-0 taking her first gold of the day.
She fought again 2 hours later in point fighting, this time against a British fighter and kept the fight close the whole way before winning by a single point at full time.
Adam Condon had to face a Russian for his point fighting final and used his speed and timing to claim the win, and yet another gold medal for Ireland.
The last Irish fighter of the day was Jordan Doran who despite getting a point deduction for a violation in the second round, managed to hold on to the lead for 1 point victory, finishing Irelands medal haul of 6 gold and 2 silver from fighting divisions.
Today will see 9 more Irish athletes take to the ring as well as 3 in the last divisions of musical forms, the weapons categories. All eyes will be on Cork’s Dalton O’Shaughnessy as he tries to equal Karyna’s accomplishment today and also win double gold.
National coach Elaine Small said “to see our athletes perform at the highest level is a testament to the amount of work they put in throughout the year, and is no more than they deserve”.
The videos of the fights will be available to view from Sunday onwards on www.brannmanndan.com.
