On the weekend the 16th-17th November 2013 in the University of Limerick Arena the Irish Taekwon-Do Association hosted the 14th edition of the Irish Cup. This was a large tournament with 532 competitors over the two days from all over Ireland as well as a team from Albania.

Saturday the 16th November was dedicated to cadets (14 – 17) and seniors, while those under-14 years of age competed on the Sunday 17th November. On the first day of competition the organizers used four competion floors whereas on Sunday 8 rings including areas for power test and special technique were used.

Those who attended the IUC held in Ireland in 2012 will be familiar with this fantastic venue and we hope in the future to attract more ITF members from abroad to this event as we feel it is on atournament a world-class level. This was the first ITA tournament to include special technique for colour belts juniors & seniors. This implementation was done as a coordinated strategy with the national team coaches as we wish to be more competitive in these disciplines in future Euros and Worlds.

The tournament was organized mainly by the instructors from Shannon and Quin Taekwon-Do clubs, Mr. Adrian Byrne and Mr. Stephen Ryan with the help of a local team of instructors and volunteers as well as the support of the ITA Tournament and Umpire Committee of Mark Buckley, Niall Jones, Adrian Byrne, Stephen Ryan and Laura Ryan.

The Irish Taekwon-Do Association as a member of the Irish Martial Arts Commission and as a Government-recognised body for ITF Taekwon-Do is compliant with the WADA anti-doping code and as such its athletes may be selected at random for drug-testing at ITA tournaments. Therefore during Saturday’s competition, two senior blackbelt competitors were selected at random for drug-testing by the Irish Sports Council Anti-Doping Unit. This highlights the professionalism of ITA tournaments and our athletes.The ISC anti-doping officers commented on the professional set-up and the quality of the event and remarked that it was one of the most professional sports that they have dealt with.

Best overall competitor awards went to the following people:

Senior Male with 3 golds: Richie Forde from North Mon TKD
Senior female with 2 golds each: Chloe Aboud of Dublin ITF and Katy LAffan of Waterford Tipp/Cork ITA
Junior Male to Dylan Murphy of North Mon TKD
Junior female with 2 golds each: Ellen Ince of Killester TKD, Maeve Magee of Integrity Martial Arts Academy and Joanne Potter of Quin TKD.
It is worth mentioning that Ellen Ince was crowned overall junior female at the recent World Championships 2013 in Benidorm, Spain.

 

Left: Overall junior male champion Dylan Murphy. Right: Overall champions senior female Chloe Aboud and Katy Laffan.

 

Left: junior female champions Maeve Magee Ellen Ince and Joanne Potter with Mr Stephen Ryan. Right: overall senior male champion Richie Forde.

The level of the colour belts on the Sunday was excellent and we are confident that the talent coming through will help Ireland to remain one of the top competitive countries in the ITF, the number of kids coming through each division and the standard makes us very hopeful that we will be able to continue building on the success of our national team in the last few years.

The Organizig Committee wish to thank to all that supported the 2013 Irish Cup.

Next Years Irish Cup will take place in the UL Sports Arena once again and this will be the 15th time the tournament has run. We hope that next year more ITF members from abroad will come to Ireland for our Open events. We run 3 high level tournaments a year. The ITA Cork Open will be on February 15th 7 16th, the ITA Dublin Open on the 5th & 6th of April and the Irish Cup on the 15th & 16th of November.