On Saturday 5th March INTA (NA for ITF Taekwon-do in Ireland) hosted the 6th INTA Open tournament. The event attracted over 350 competitors to compete in sparring and patterns. The event was open to ITF practitioners with a large delegation of 15 competitors from Belgium brought by president of ITF Belgium Ms. Annick Van Driessche.Guest of honour at the event was Cuban born boxing coach Mr. Nicholas Cruz. In 1992, Ireland won a gold and a silver at the Olympics under the expert coaching of Mr. Cruz. He very much enjoyed watching his first ITF event and had long conversations about training and coaching at the top table with Mr.Gerry Martin VI Degree, Mr. Val Douglas VI Degree, Master Frank Vanberghen VII Degree and Master Brendan O'Toole VII Degree. First events of the day were the junior male and female patterns and sparring, with competitors demonstrating a good technical standard and competitive spirit. The small children participating showed that the future of ITF Taekwon-do in Ireland is very bright.

There were excellent performances in the junior black belt division in particular the final of female heavy weight between Erlinde Tollenaere (ITF Belgium) and Helen Boylan (ITC Ireland) which was a close and exciting bout which ended with a win for Ireland on this occasion. Ciaran Ryan (INTA Ireland) won through a hotly contested junior heavyweight division to clinch his second gold of the day having won senior II Degree patterns. Mark McGeachie (ITF Scotland) won through a large Senior I Degree patterns section beating European silver medallist Brian O'Connor (INTA Ireland) in the final.

Winner of the III & IV Degree pattern section was Donal O'Donoghue (INTA Ireland) after a close final with Niall Jones (INTA Ireland).

 

The female lightweight final between Nicola McCutcheon (INTA Ireland) and Maria Virginia Dionisi (ITF Belgium) went to Ireland after a great match. The female heavy weight champion was Lenka Marsivova (INTA Ireland). The final of male -71kg was an exciting match between Donal O'Donoghue (INTA Ireland) and Luke Woods (ITC Ireland) with Luke taking gold this time out. Patrick Crevecoeur (ITF Belgium) won the -80kg division for the second year running after a hotly contested final against John Moffitt (INTA Ireland) and finally in the +80kg division experience showed with Jonathan Dargan (INTA Ireland) out manoeuvring Karl Duffy (INTA Ireland) to take the last gold medal of the day.

Many thanks to the competitors, coaching staff, umpires and spectators we look forward to seeing you in Dublin next year.