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West of Ireland Judo Youth Championships 2005 Report

The West of Ireland Youth Championships in its second year attracted a large entry last weekend. The event was held at the Galway Lawn Tennis Club and organised by the Galway Judo Club to facilitate the growing numbers taking up Judo.

The dominance of the more established clubs took a hammering from the newer clubs such as Renmore, Tuam among others. Yet despite this the clubs in the Galway area withstood the challenges both from Cavan and the Dublin area.

Oisin Madden of the Renmore J.C. took a gold medal in the -31 kgs beating the more experienced Darragh Canavan in a close final. Barry Creaven, Galway J.C. had to settle for a silver despite being ahead for most of the contest with Feargal Moore from Cavan J.C.. This was Damien Belton’s first tournament and he had a great result by taking a bronze.

Feargal O’Flaherty also took a bronze in a very competitive -55kg. Some of his opposition seemed far more mature physically than their stated ages. The influence of the migrant community both from Eastern Europe and parts of Africa gave the championships a very International dimension. Cathal Creaven of Annaghdown J.C. took the gold medal in a great final against Craig Joyce of Renmore J.C. Ashling Kelly also of Annaghdown J.C. won the gold medal in a closely fought contest with her clubmate Kimberly Savage. Ashling has had a lot of under success at schools judo. Shane Murphy of Galway took a bronze in his weight division.

Brendan Conway of the organising committee ran the event very well and had plenty of help from all the other officials and referees.

James Connolly who has started his own club in Castlegar was also there and hopes to have young players taking part next year.

The players are now looking forward to both the provincial championships and the Dublin schools championships.

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