South Dublin Taekwondo

The whirlwind month for South Dublin Taekwondo Jack Woolley continues where a goal is set to compete 4 times, in 3 continents in less than 3 weeks. 3 out of four events are now complete with his participation at the European Club Taekwondo Championships, a world ranking event worth valuable points to Jacks collection. On his way back from the Canada Open last weekend, Jack’s coaches did a tag-team where Dylan Leonard took up the reigns meeting Jack half way through his 4 flight journey from Montreal to Antalya, Turkey. Jack competed on Thursday 18^th February in a the -54kg division where he was seeded #1. As usual in recent times, his high seeding lead to a bye in the first round, but there was no easy pathway to the podium this time for young Woolley, 17. He drew Vincent Godei of the Netherlands who although unseeded, is a tough up cnd coming athelete just out of juniors. Jack certainly had a first match scare where he was loosing 6-5 with one second to go in th match and levelled the match before the clock stopped. The match went to overtime where jack secured the match with a clinical head kick. In the quarter finals jack met Omer Faruk Kardes from Turkey, at this stage Jack found his stride and won the match 19-6 leading to a semi final encounter with Mert Erdogan also of turkey. This match was a much closer going all the way through the three two minute rounds finally finishing 16-13 to Jack. Now jack found himself in his 4^th final in 4 events in 2016, something unprecedented at this level so far in 2016. Jack unfortunately could not hold onto his momentum, and was overcome by another former junior opponent of his Deniz Dagdelen of Turkey 15-6 in the final match. Jack was awarded a silver medal and second place on the podium adding to his Silver in USA a couple of Weeks ago, and Gold in Canada last week. SDTKD Head Coach Robert Taaffe noted the importance of the event, ‘Each Continental Union in the WTF has its own Club Championships, this year was the first time our club was represented at a major club championships, not only by one of our athletes, but we made a very conscious decision to send one of our clubs up and coming senior coaches Dylan Leonard for his first experience coaching at senior WTF Ranking level to ensure that we can bring back as much knowledge to the club as possible.’. The final leg of Jacks busy February will conclude at one final event in Fujairah, U.A.E. where he will compete in Asias edition of their G2 [Grade 2] ranking event where many of the worlds elite are expected to flock to get their hands on some of the valuable double World & Olympic Ranking points.