News 002 - 01/03/2006 - European championship 2005

European Chamionship 2005

 

Photo gallery

 

The 2005 European Championship took place between the 22nd – 24th April in Terracina, Italy. The event ran over three days; Friday’s events were individual & team pattern and individual & team special technique. Saturday was dedicated to individual sparring and Sunday team sparring and team power.

Day 1: The first Irish competitor to secure a medal at the European Championships was Helen Boylan in the junior female II Dan patterns category.  Helen overcame Angela Fiorini from Italy to secure her place in the semi-final against Wiebke Schulz of Germany.  Helen performed very well but Schulz won the decision leaving Helen with the bronze medal.

In the male III Dan patterns section Donal O’Donoghue faced Lylian Doulay of France in the opening round and recorded a victory.  In the second round Donal faced the highly experienced Massimo Persia of Italy.  This was an extremely close match with both competitors displaying excellent technique, after performing two patterns the umpires scored the match a draw.  Another designated pattern (Yul Gok Tul) was selected and the competitors put everything into the performance to qualify for a place in the semi-final.  The scores were checked and Donal was through to the semi final against Tim Dunn from England.  After another strong performance Donal went through to the final against Mariusz Walach of Poland.  The final went well with both competitors performing to a very high standard.  The jury president counted the umpires scores while the spectators shouted for Poland or Ireland, then raised his hand to signal that Mariusz Walach was European Champion for the eight time, leaving Donal O’Donoghue with a well deserved silver.

The junior male team pattern event Ireland drew Croatia in the first round and secured a convincing victory putting them through to the semi-final against Russia.  The team performed very well but the Russian team performed to a very high standard and went through to the final leaving Ireland in the bronze medal position.

The last event on Friday was the special technique breaking where Ireland was represented by Karl Duffy. Karl hit the overhead kick at a height of 270 cm (1 point), the jump turning kick at 240 cm (2 points) and the flying side kick (2 points) to score a total of 5 points leaving him tied in second place with Carlo Van de Braak of The Netherlands.  There was then a play off to decide on silver/bronze. The umpire selected the flying side kick, which both competitors hit.  Another technique was chosen to separate the dead heat, Jump reverse turning kick – neither competitor hit the target.  Finally the judges decided to raise the height of the jump turning kick to 250 cm. Carlo came close but did not hit the target, Karl made no mistake and blasted the target to secure the silver medal.

Day 2: Danny Dillon was Ireland’s competitor in the junior male –58kg sparring category.  Danny’s first opponent was Kristian Ernstsen from Norway whom he clearly out pointed and qualified for the second round where he faced England’s Steven Arroyo and again scored very clear points and qualified for the semi-final.  In the semi-final Danny put in another strong performance against Pavel Yarmoshuk from Belarus to qualify for the final.  In the final bout Danny’s opponent was Sanel Ljutic of Slovenia and after a close match the Solvenian won out.

Saturday’s proceedings ended on a high note with Lenka Marsikova’s performance in the female power test.  The division included competitors from; England, Scotland, Hungary, Belgium, Romania, Sweden, Germany, Poland, Italy, Russia, Finland and of course Ireland. Lenka broke two boards with the knife-hand strike (4 points) and two boards with the turning kick (4 points) to give her eight points and the gold medal.

Day 3: The female team performed well in the power test category, which included entries from Germany, Sweden, Scotland, Russia, Finland, Hungary, England, Poland, Romania, Ukraine and Ireland finishing in bronze medal position.

At the closing ceremony the AETF flag was passed to Romania who will host the European Championships in 2006.

The competitors would like to sincerely thank the entire coaching, management and support team for all the assistance and support during the championships.