One of the world’s largest fighting tournaments took place over the weekend of February 28th to March 2nd. The Irish Open attracted over 3,000 elite kickboxers from around the world to the City West Convention Centre. The Irish Open has WAKO (World Association of Kickboxing Associations) ‘World Cup’ status and thus is regarded as one of the toughest kickboxing tournaments in the world today.
So you can see why at Red Star Kickboxing we’re all a bit chuffed to announce that we had two fighters win the gold. Brendan Kenny won gold in his division of -84kg advanced ‘light continuous’ and Lauren Bradshaw won the gold in her +70kg advanced ‘point fighting’ division. A third Red Star kickboxer, Alan O’Connell also competed in a huge -70kg division and fought himself into a respectable 4th place having reached the quarter finals.
Both Brendan and Lauren currently form part of the Red Star High Performance squad. High Performance training is geared towards the elite competitors such as Brendan and Lauren who are both training for places on the Kickboxing Ireland national squad.
Red Star Kickboxing coach Jon Mackey had this to say “The Irish Open is not a tournament that you go to half cocked. You need to be in tip top condition and on your game. I’m pleased to say that our two fighters were very ready for this tournament and their hard work in training paid off. This result for both Brendan and Lauren comes at a welcome time as we prepare for the junior national eliminations this coming May. Both competitors will be fighting the very best in Ireland to gain a place on the national team that will attend the WAKO World and European championships this year in Italy and Slovenia.”
Brendan was up first to compete and had a tough division which included a current WKA World Champion from Germany and a WKA British Champion from Britain. Brendan proved to be too strong for both and had relatively comfortable victories over both. He also faced opponents from Greece and Croatia to win his division.
Lauren dispatched fighters from Poland, England, Wales and a German opponent in the final to clinch the gold and prestigious title of Irish Open Champion. Lauren is no stranger to competing at this level as she currently holds the European WAKO title for continuous sparring so adding a point fighting title to her name is always welcome!
Those two fantastic wins put Red Star into joint 14th place on the medal tables and with over 70 clubs registered it makes our standing even more brilliant. Red Star were the only Dublin Kickboxing club to be ranked in the top 20.
In closing a huge thanks should be extended to Roy Baker, the president of Kickboxing Ireland and his team for organising such a huge event and for bringing such talented fighters to Irish Shores. At the Irish Open only the very best prevail while the pretenders are exposed and the half hearted beaten!
