Meath crew bidding for National Karate Championship success
Members of Meath Karate will be in action this Saturday at the National Championships in Dublin on where there will be top class competition across all the grades.
The championships will take place over Saturday and Sunday in Dublin at the Tallaght Leisure Centre.
Members of Meath Karate have been training at BT Fitness on a weekly basis and some of them will be representing the club this weekend.
PHOTO OF GROUP AT TRAINING
At a training session last week were (from left): back - Mark Collender, Caelan O’Brien, Sadhbh O’Brien, Vlad Bunduchi, Brian Durning, Adrian Collender; front - Holly Ryan, Abbi McCullagh, Aoibhe O’Reilly and Shane Durning.
Three under-age members of Meath Karate will be confident ahead of this weekend's National Championships after they enjoyed a successful outing at the 47th European Wado-Kai Cup in Budapest at the beginning of November.
At that event second year Loreto, Navan student Sadhbh O'Brien won a gold medal.
Sadhbh took gold in the u-14 girls Kumite +50kg and was also the Wado-kai European Champion while her brother Caelan took a bronze medal.
They were joined by another member of Meath Karate at the prestigious competition, Vlad Bunduchi, who also won a bronze medal.
The medal-winning trio are all coached by Adrian Collender of BT Fitness (Beechmount Homepark, Navan) and were selected for the Ireland Wado-Kai Karate Association (IWKA) team for the trip to Hungary.
Caelan O'Brien took a bronze medal in the u-14 boys Kumite -50kg and in a separate category, Vlad Bunduchi scooped bronze in the u-14 boys Kumite -40kg.
Vlad Bunduchi is a first year student at Beaufort College while Caelan O'Brien is a sixth class pupil at Cannistown NS.
Apart from individual success, there was also team success as Sadhbh O'Brien and Vlad Bunduchi won silver medals with their respective girls and boys Kata teams.
The competition was a big success for the strong Irish team with Sadhbh O'Brien's gold medal augmented by three silver and seven bronze medals to make it the best results for the IWKA at a European event.
Sadhbh O'Brien has had a busy year competing successfully in September when she won gold at the Irish International Open Karate Championships at the National Indoor Arena, Dublin.
Representing the IWKA she won a strong u-14 +42kg category after an exciting final and that made it two-in-a-row at the grade for the Navan girl.
She also won the title 12 months ago and was eligible again this year.
There was also a silver medal in the u-14 team event in a tournament that featured competitors from 12 countries at what was the flagship event for the official national governing body of karate in Ireland.
She enjoyed success three years ago as a u-10 competitor when she was selected for the Irish team at the 21st Széki Cup in Hungary.
At that competition she won gold and silver medals and followed up in October of that year with bronze medals at the CIKA European Championships which was hosted at the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght.
Her double bronze was achieved in individual Kumite (fighting) at u-12 grade and team Kumite when she stepped up to the u-14 grade.