South Dublin competitors step it up Down Under
SOUTH Dublin Taekwondo fielded four athletes in a double header of World Taekwondo ‘G2’ (Grade Two, double ranking points) events in the Gold Coast, Australia, enjoying a strong return.
SDTKD junior fighters Ryan Doyle, Lauren Farrell and David Phelan along with their senior team mate Jack Woolley all turned in very encouraging performances in both the Oceania Presidents Cup and Australian Open that attracted fighters from all around the world.
SDTKD’s Jack Woolley, Lauren Farrell and David Phelan with the medals they won in Australia.
In the former, Woolley earned a bronze medal and 7.2 World Ranking Points, while completing his maximum 40 Olympic Ranking points allowance for 2019.
The Tallaght competitor was handed a bye in the preliminary due to ranking, and built on that with wins over Japanese opponent Jin Tomura and Taipei’s Hao-Yu Hsu before losing out to former World and Youth Olympic Champion Chen Yu-Wang from Chinese Taipei.
He went two steps better on the closing day to secure gold, 20 ranking points and the title of Australian Open Champion 2019.
Woolley kicked of that campaign with a victory over Korea’s Hong Seok Lee, followed by another win over Tomura.
A semi final triumph over Columbia’s Jefferson Ochoa set him up for a meeting with Australian home favourite Bailey Lewis against whom he fell behind in the opening round.
Yet following some fine adjustments, he stormed back to win the decider 23-16 and stun the home crowd.
Farrell, meanwhile, secured a silver medal in her junior -59kg category at the Oceania Presidents Cup after an impressive day of fighting that ended with defeat to Amber Heslop of Australia.
In her second event, she again came up against Heslop, this time in the semis where she finished with a bronze medal.
David Phelan won a brace of bronze medals, in both events fighting strong preliminary rounds, but coming up against the eventual gold medallist, Liam Sweeney of Australia in the last four.
A couple of strong performances by the youngest of the group, Ryan Doyle left him just outside the medals.
Indeed, in his last fight of the events he was seconds away from defeating the eventual gold medallist of the Australian Open Kareem Ali, with his coach Robert Taaffe protesting a dubious penalty decision with video replay, only to be declined by the officials.
