21 Medals for fighters
Six athletes from the Black Dragon Martial Arts Academy competed in the Unified World Championships in Italy last weekend, coming home with a combined total of 12 gold, nine silver and three bronze medals.
The fighters competed across five different categories both on the ring and on the mats in the K1 kickboxing and no-kick kickboxing categories. Some athletes competed in over ten fights throughout the five-day event.
“I'm very proud of them,” Head Coach Larry McQuaid told the Celt.
“They've been preparing for it all year, some of them would have been fighting during the year. There was a lot of preparation in the background,” Larry said, explaining that they train four days per week.
Image 1 of 4
Head coach Larry McQuaid with James Horan on his shoulders, Nikole Glinkina, Karina Khomenko, Nojus Mykolaitis, Rachel Horan, Luke Smith. Missing from photo Dimitar Stoyanov and Aingeal McQuaid. RIGHT: Nikole Glinkina and Karina Khomenko.Image 2 of 4
Dimitar Stoyanov.Image 3 of 4
Inset: Nikole Glinkina and Karina Khomenko.Image 4 of 4
Nojus Mykolaitis.“They do their own bit of training outside because they are running as well, it takes a lot of effort on their part,” he explained.
Competitors from all over the world came to Carrara in Italy to compete, Cavan competitors shared the ring with fighters from as far as Australia, New Zealand and America - “people from all over the world.”
“They're bringing their best,” the Kells native described.
“This is an open championship so you've all different types of organisations going to this one. There was up on three thousand competitors there. It was one of the largest ones in the world,” he outlined.
The Black Dragon coach explained that within kickboxing there are full contact rules, K1 which involves using your knees, and low kick which is below the waist.
“You can do that at semi-contact which would be on the mats as well. All the rule sets that are in the ring, they'd all be full contact and then you have the same rule set but on the mats which wouldn't be full contact.”
With some taking part in 11 fights, the coach described it as a “long weekend” which paid off for the club who came home with 24medals in total.
The fighters over the weekend comprised James Horan (8), Karina Khomenko (16), Nikole Glinka (16), Nojus Mykolaitis (16), Dimitar Stoyanov and Luke Smith.
Nikole and Nojus are now training for Irish title fights coming up in the next few weeks.