Woolley continues his rise in Riga Open
JACK Woolley made it gold medals at two consecutive world ranking Open events when he topped the podium at the Riga Open in Latvia.
Just three weeks after setting the ring alight in Poland, he lined out in the Riga Open for the third year, hoping to improve on his take in 2016 and 2017.
He began the day with a bye due to his seeding, setting him up for a Round-of-16 clash with Hungarian Peter Fischer.
The South Dublin Taekwondo star brought this contest to an early close in the second round after opening up a 33-0 point gap.
Maintaining this form, he defeated Great Britain’s Hassan Haider in the quarter final 34-8 before beating European Champion Mourad Laachraoui 17-7 in the last four.
Up against Serbia’s Milos Gladovic in the decider, Woolley carded his third consecutive victory over a Grand Prix athlete in just a few hours, winning 15-9 and, with it, gold.
Commenting on Woolley’s performance, South Dublin Taekwondo head coach Robert Taaffe said, “Jack is in a great run of form.
“It’s just a year since he started in this weight category and he is almost in the top ten rankings in the world.
“He is also just sitting in the auto qualify rankings for Tokyo currently. I am sure there will be some cat and mouse between a few athletes for the auto-qualify spots, but Jack is holding firm.
“It’s been a busy few weeks, in between his two golds in Warsaw and Riga, he had a fantastic Grand Prix fifth in Taiwan.
“We have some international guests coming to visit us in Dublin over the next week for final preparations for the Manchester Grand Prix on 20th October,” he added.
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