On Sunday, January 28th, the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland hosted the All Ireland Judo Championship 2018.
Over 120 contestants and supporters from all over Ireland turned up at the Islamic Cultural Centre, Clonskeagh for this year’s All Ireland Judo Championships. All provinces & all Judo Associations were represented at this year’s event.
The Higashi Judo Club, from Leixlip & Clonee dominated the Minor boys categories, with Stefan Jovu, Sebastian Caliu, Archili Tataru & Vlad Melinte taking 4 of the 5 Gold medals on offer.
Cork School of Judo took the final Minor Boys Gold with Anthony Arundel and also the only Minor Girls Gold with a very dominant Anna Van Wijnen outclassing her opponents.
Higashi continued their dominance in the Young Men’s section, taking 3 of the 4 Gold on offer, with Eric Clipper, Dan Bolan and Ion Lipsiuc. Daigokan’s Oisin Corrigan took the final gold, while Caithlyn Heffernan came through to win the Young Women’s Gold.
The Senior categories threw up some fantastic surprises, with veteran’s Fabio Viti, St. Joseph’s coming through a very tough group to win at U60 kg and Luke McCabe, Sligo taking the Heavyweight crown.
A very young Yegor Varonik, Higashi came through the largest group of the day, U73 kg, defeating reigning champion Seán Davitt, Buzoku in the final. Ben McQuaid, DIT, took gold at U66 kg while Ion Iovu, Higashi, won at U81 kg and Lorcan Gleeson, Buzoku, took the U90 kg crown.
Another Veteran, Christina dominated the SWenior Women’s U 57 kg, while 16 year old Siofra Buckley took the O57 kg title.
A special word of thanks to Fr. Jude McKenna, 9th Dan for coming along to award the trophies, together with Mostafa Nidar, representing the Islamic community here in Dublin.
- Alan Martin, Technical Director, Judo Ireland.
