Team Ireland returned from the Taekwon-Do World Championships with a very impressive haul of 10 Gold, 5 Silver and 8 Bronze medals, ranking in 2nd place overall from sixty nations.
Team Ireland and Quin Taekwon-Do Head Coach, Stephen Ryan, led the sixty person team Ireland squad, which also comprised eight members from Quin Taekwon-Do Club.
James Tuite, current European Champion competed in the -69kg sparring category defeating opponents from England, Chile, Argentina, Germany and Scotland before narrowly losing out to an Italian opponent in the final, seeing James return home as World Silver medalist. James was also part of the senior male sparring team who won the Gold medal along with his brother Shane and club mate Luke Moriarty. The senior male team defeated teams from the USA, Spain, Norway and Germany before convincingly defeating Sweden in the final to claim the title of World Champions. Luke Moriarty also went on to take the silver medal in -75kg sparring defeating opponents from Ukraine, Finland, Norway and Germany before narrowly losing to Norway in the final.
It is worth mentioning that brothers Shane and James showed incredible resilience in their strong performances at these championships, with the passing of their Grandfather, Joe, on the day before they were due to travel and despite this being an incredibly difficult week for them both they were able to push through and help their team claim the world title.
Christine Franks was part of the senior female team who also claimed the title of world champions with very skillful performances seeing them defeating teams from Slovenia, Norway and Argentina to claim the gold medal. David Larkin captained the junior male team to the Gold medal in the team pattern event with very sharp performances against teams from Poland, Scotland, Argentina and Romania to claim the world title.
Shauna Daffy came very close to the podium with strong performances in the over 65 kg sparring category before narrowly losing to a Scottish opponent in the quarter final. Dannan Fox gave a solid performance in the -70kg sparring category narrowly losing to Poland and as part of the junior male team and Cara Copeland, competing at this level for the first time, gained huge experience in the individual and team pattern events.
The next event on the horizon for Quin Taekwon-Do club is the Irish Cup taking place in the University of Limerick on November 4th and 5th, which forms part of the selection process for the 2024 European Championships which will take place in Lublin, Poland and Quin Taekwon-Do will be hoping to have a strong contingent as part of team Ireland for that event also.