Stephen Jones from Tallaght Martial Arts receives the Active South Dublin Sports Star of the Month Award for November from Thos McDermott, Head of Active South Dublin, Bryan Malone, Sales and Marketing Manager, The Plaza Hotel and David Kennedy, editor, The Echo
November Sports Star of the Month is Stephen Jones
Stephen Jones recently won gold in the Masters Division at the WAKO Kickboxing World Championships for Tallaght Martial Arts.
Stephen is a coach within the club and has been a member for the past 15 years. Fighting in the 94kg+ division Stephen has been undefeated since qualifying for the Masters category a couple of years ago and has fought over 30 times in the division.
During that time he has seen himself win back to back International competitions multiple years in a row. With World and European championships held on a bi annual basis, Jones won the 2023 World Championship, 2024 European Championship and the 2025 World Championship consecutively.
A native of Tymonville, Jones possesses a decorated career with four WAKO World Cups as well as four Bristol Opens to his name.
Jones trains 8 times a week during the prep for his competitions. The intensive training schedule is needed with the standard being so high, WAKO is considered to be the pinnacle of the sport and is the only Olympic recognised competition currently in the sport of kickboxing.
While not a part of the Olympics yet there has been a big push in recent years for Kickboxing to be included in the Olympics with the sport just falling short of being included in the Los Angeles games with aspirations of being included for 2032.
