The 15th ITA Irish Cup took place in the UL Arena, Limerick on the 14th & 15th November 2015. The tournament was attended by athletes from around Ireland as well as from the Netherlands, Scotland, Albania, Italy and England. 630 competitors took part in the event over the 2 days. Both competition days began with a minute of silence in respect of the victims of the Paris attacks as well as in memory of Jacqueline Rowold, a young German competitor who sadly lost her life recently.

Saturday was a day of cadet & adult competition, with five rings running patterns, sparring, special technique and power breaking competition. The tournament also included a specific section for novice blackbelts aged 13 years as well as veteran sections for older competitors. Since introducing the veteran category at the beginning of the year the tournament committee have seen a marked increase in the number of older adults taking part in competition and it is very satisfying to see. The idea behind introducing the younger black belt category was for two reasons. Firstly the ITA competitions are attracting competitors from other organisations who tend to have black belts at much younger ages. The minimum age for ITA black belts is 13 years of age. It was felt this category was needed to allow these younger black belts the opportunity to develop before competing against those that may be on national team level. We will see how this new category develops over the next few events and review its success in the middle of 2016.

There were many high-level international competitors taking part, making for many exciting match ups. In the junior sections junior World & European champion Luke Mc Grath continued his run taking Gold in sparring & special technique and Silver in patterns, making him the overall best junior male. While Joanne Potter was awarded best overall junior female with 2 Golds and a Bronze.

In the senior sections, Jenny Lehane and Louise McCagh both took Gold in the -56kg & -68kg sections respectively. While Stephen Ryan & Hong Looi met once again in the final of the 4th – 6th Degree section with Mr Ryan taking Gold. In Male sparring Stephen Smullen took Gold in a large -78kg sparring group, with Hong Looi taking silver and John Moffitt picking up Bronze on this occasion.

Day 2 of the competition was for competitors aged 13 and younger, with over 450 competitors taking part from ITA clubs, other Irish TKD groups and the Netherlands. As with all ITA tournaments, there was a very high standard of skill in the sparring, patterns & special technique sections taking place over 8 rings. The future of Irish Taekwon-Do looks bright!

At the end of Day 2, the awards for best overall club where presented to the clubs with the highest points tallies. Mr Stephen Cooley picking up the 1st place trophy for Integrity/Rivervalley, Mr Mark Buckley from Cork ITA received the second place trophy, while Mr Niall Jones, coach of the North Taekwon-Do Club was awarded the 3rdplace trophy.

The Irish Taekwon-Do Association would like to thank our tournament & umpire committee, organisers, umpires and volunteers for their excellent work over the weekend. We would also like to thank our competitors from around Ireland as well as our guests from around Europe for making the 15th Irish Cup such a memorable weekend. We look forward to welcoming you back for the ITA Cork Open in February 2016.