Turkish delight for Nicole Bannon

TALLAGHT Martial Arts Nicole Bannon was top of her game at the Turkish Open 2023 in Istanbul which had over 3,700 entries from 40 countries which was held last weekend.

Nicole Bannon was in action on Friday in the -60kg points fighting section.

Her first opponent was Funda Gulec from Turkey which saw Nicole take control of the bout with her excellent movement and counter attacks which saw her win the bout by 20 points to 16 points to progress to the semi-finals against Kiara Mager from Germany.

Again the on form TMA fighter took control of the contest from the start with amazing display of her evasion and counter punching to advance to the final winning by 15 points to 12 points.

Andrea Busa from Hungary was Nicole’s next challenger, Nicole continued her strategy of counter attacking against her tough Hungarian rival and the score was level at the end of the first round.

In the second round Nicole changed her tactics from countering to attacking which led Nicole to win the final by 16 points to 13 points to win the Turkish Open 2023.

Nicole was in action again on Sunday in the -60kg light contact section which pitched her against against Sabriye Musaoglu from Turkey which the referee stoped the contest in the first round.

In the semi final the Tallaght Martial Arts fighter was matched against Urska Gazvoda from Slovenia; this was an extremely close contest over the two rounds with both fighters taking the lead at various stages over the bout, which saw the Slovenia fighter regaining the lead in the last 3 seconds of the contest to progress to the final.

Tallaght Martial Arts coach Martin Bannon remarked “it was a great weekend of tough fights for Nicole who was top of her game over the four day tournament which will set Nicole up for the Points Fighter Cup in Milan this weekend were Nicole will team up with 12 Tallaght Martial Arts fighters to compete over the two day event in Milan with over 1,000 competitor’s from 50 teams”.