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IUTF trio Mr. Fitzgibbon, Mr. O’ Sullivan and Mr. Keane travelled to Scotland to participate in the GTI Scotish Championships. The IUTF internationals won a total of seven medals and the event acted as an excellent warm up for the upcoming Open World TKD Championships to be held in Birmingham. The trip was funded by the IUTF.

Moriarty wins silver in Taekwon Do World Championships

Mr Richard Brown and Mr Jason Moriarty shake hands in the world TKD Championships

Mr. Jason Moriarty became the first IUTF member to reach the finals of the Open Taekwon Do World Championships, where he lost by split decision to local TAGB fighter, Richard Brown. Moriarty had faced a total of six opponents in the previous rounds, including former world champion Rodney Burnett in the semi finals. The following day he captained the Irish team which beat Canada and then faced Argentina in the quarterfinals. Ireland were hamstrung by the fact that their welterweight Mr. Barrett was disqualified in the previous round for knocking out his Canadian opponent. At the end of the remaining bouts the scores were tied and a toss of the coin gave Argentina the chance to pick the weight for the deciding fight. Amazingly they picked welterweight and won by default. It later turned out that the Argentinians had also used a welterweight as a flyweight. They again used the same practitioner in the semi finals and were disqualified. Afterwards the Irish team received a set of medals to commemorate their good sportsmanship but all team members felt hard done by.

The IUTF also celebrated its new world class practitioner Mr. Mark Philpott of Millstreet Taekwon Do who won a bronze medal in the flyweight division (-58kg). Mr. Philpott, who is a student of Mr. Dalton and Ms. Koniuch is only a black belt for a short time and was beaten by the eventual winner of the section.

A five man IUTF team travelled to Derby to participate in the GTI British Championships. The competition was hosted by Mr. Ton Sewell and contained almost 400 competitors. Irish international Sean Keane continued to impress by winning the middleweight section easily. Mr. Keane hails from the Charleville Taekwon Do club has seen a meteoric rise in his fortunes since joining the IUTF. He has already won numerous medals for Ireland in the last two years alone, winning gold in England, Scotland, Germany, Wales and the Gambia. He also was unlucky in the 1998 Open World Championships in the Birmingham where he lost a very dubious decision to his TAGB opponent in the quarter finals. The medal winners from the trip were: Mr. Jerry O’ Neill (bronze), Mr. Jason Moriarty (gold), Mr. Sean Keane (gold) and Mr. Don Dalton (gold X 2). The trip was funded by the IUTF.