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| Sam and Chloe Magee |
BADMINTON: Olympic hopefuls Chloe Magee and Scott Evans top the seedings for next weekend’s Irish National Badminton Championships in Baldoyle. Magee, going for her sixth national title, has already booked her place on the London 2012 team, while Evans who has six national titles to his credit, is still hopeful of making it.
Chloe and Sam Magee, who have an outside chance of qualifying for the mixed doubles at the Olympics, defend their title for a fifth time. In the men’s doubles, Sam Magee and Raphoe’s Ian McBeth are likely to face Dan Magee and Niall Tierney in the final, while Sinead Chambers and Jennie King will defend their women’s doubles title.
As a warm-up for the Irish Nationals, Tony Stephenson beat fellow Lisburn player Scott Burnside to win the men’s singles at the Leinster Badminton Open in Dublin’s Whitehall Road. In a Lisburn double, 15-year-old Alannah Stephenson beat top seed Jennie King of Mount Pleasant to take the women’s singles. Match of the afternoon was the men’s doubles, when Mount Pleasant pair Dan Magee and Niall Tierney took a third consecutive title beating Tony Stephenson and Tony Murphy of Lisburn. Winning the women’s doubles were defending champions Pauline and Fiona Glennon, while taking the mixed doubles were Pauline Glennon and Eddie Cousins.
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| Champions White and Voss |
TENPIN BOWLING: Irish tenpin bowling fans were treated to a rare display of world-class bowling at the Columbia 300 Irish Open in Leisureplex Stillorgan, Dublin. No fewer than seven perfect games were bowled – that’s twelve strikes in a row for a score of 300. Irish player Paul Stott and the great American pro Brian Voss were the first to bowl a “300” game. They were followed by England’s Hayley White, who became the first women to bowl a 300 game in a number of years at Stillorgan.
Voss and White were eventually crowded champions after a tense final round robin between the top eight players. In the women’s competition, Irish champion Hannah Cullen did brilliantly to finish just nine points behind White for second. Former champion Kerena Dykes finished sixth, with Amanda McDermott just behind her and Aimee Kelleher eighth. Best of the Irish men was Alan Gibbons, who finished third.
SWIMMING: Dublin swimmers Jerry Kiersey and Rachel Doyle have won gold medals for the 450m endurance ice swim at the World Winter Championships in Jurmala, Riga, Latvia. The pair took to the waters in a “swimming pool” cut from the ice on the river Lielupe, which flows into the Baltic Sea. In the sub-zero temperatures, swimmers could wear only their swimsuits and a hat – gloves, socks and any form of neoprene was banned.
Kiersey won the over 60 men’s title, while Doyle prevailed in the 20 to 30 age group. Others to swim included Tom Healy and Rachel Lee of Dublin Fire Brigade and Ann McAdam, one of the first Irish women to swim the English Channel. They had trained in the Irish Sea – temperature about four degrees – and took on hardened competitors from Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
TABLE TENNIS: Over 100 young table tennis players got a packed day of play at the latest round of the Stiga Challenger Series in UCD Belfield. After the initial grading matches, Eoghan Whelan of Ballyroan beat Rathdowney’s John Mansfield in the division 1 final. In division 2, James O’Connor of Blackrock took the title, beating Jessie Hayes of Mountrath. Ian Manley of St Tiernan’s won division 3 and Derek Mullholland of Raven division 4.
KICKBOXING: Three times world champion Barbara Delaney heads the bill at an all-female “Night of the Knockouts” kickboxing show in the Artane Beaumont FRC next Saturday February 4 (8.0). Delaney takes on Ana Roxo from Portugal for the WIMMAAO and WKL full contact world titles.
In other fights, Leona O’Shea from Shannon faces Armagh kickboxer Charlene Creaney for the Five Nations title, and Alex Ward and Jodie Doran battle it out for the Irish junior full contact title.
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