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| Doubles winners Font and Gwilt |
BADMINTON: Women have taken over the courts for this weekend’s Fyffes Irish Future Series tournament in Baldoyle, Dublin .
Event referee is Spain’s Carmen Martinez Villanueva, assisted by Badminton Ireland’s event officer Cheryl Evans, a member of Badminton Europe’s Women in Sport working group. Among the technical officers is Ireland’s Olympic official Carol Ui Fhearghail. In co-operation with the Irish Sports Council, Badminton Ireland has organised a number of “Women in Sport” initiatives over the past four years, including summer camps for girls, club initiatives for women and the ‘Women in the Chair’ project for technical officials.
The Fyffes Irish Future Series is the centrepiece of Badminton Ireland’s National Badminton Week, when clubs all over the country open their doors to new members, with special coaching and fun events for all ages.
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| Mattias Wigardt |
* Update: Irish international badminton player Sinead Chambers lost out to Perrine le Buhanic in the women’s singles final. Chambers saved four matches points before conceding victory to her French opponent.
In the men’s singles final, Mattias Wigardt of Sweden had a comfortable straight sets win over Maxim Michel of France. Match of the day proved to be the men’s doubles decider, where the young Welsh pairing of Daniel Font and Oliver Gwilt toppled top seeds
Martin Campbell and Angus Gilmour.
Results
Singles – Men: M Wigardt (Swe) (1) bt M Michel (Fra) (2) 21-8, 21-9.
Women: P le Bahunic (Fra) (1) bt S Chambers (Ire) 21-17, 21-17.
Doubles – Men: D Font/O Gwilt (Wal) (1) bt M Campbell/A Gilmour (Sco)
(1) 12-21, 26-24, 21-16. Women: S Chambers/J King (Ire) (1) bt R Darragh/A Stephenson (Ire) 21-18, 21-14. Mixed: E Cousins/K Fox (Ire) bt S Lightbody/C Black (Ire)(2) 21-17, 21-14.
TRIATHLON: Conor Murphy finished sixth at the final European Premium Cup (Olympic Distance) of the season in Alanya, Turkey, a trial run for the European Championships next year. In a race dominated by Russian and Ukrainian triathletes, Murphy’s swim combined with a fast transition was enough to put him close to the front for the 40km cycle. With a 10km run time of 31 mins 49 seconds, his total time was 1 hour 44 mins 46 seconds. Russians triathletes, led by Ivan Vasileev, took up the first five places. Ireland’s Russell white finished 14th in 1:47.08.
* Triathlon Ireland has 20 places on offer for paratriathlets wishing to compete internationally next season. Details on the Triathlon Ireland website.
SNOOKER: Rodney Goggins is top seed at snooker’s first senior ranking tournament of the season in the Ivy Rooms, Carlow this weekend. A total of 75 players are ranked and will play in seeded groups.
Irish No 1 Michelle Sherwin continued her dominance of the sport locally when she won the opening women’s ranking tournament of the season in Celbridge last weekend. Although she has a record eight Irish titles to her credit, Sherwin shows no sign of slacking. She reached the final after beating Michelle French 3-0 in the semi-final and then beat Claire Mill 3-1 in a tense final. Mill had beaten current Irish pool champion Sandra Bryan in her semi-final.
TABLE TENNIS: Paul McCreery and Liu Na take over the top positions on the Irish table tennis senior list following following their wins in the opening Irish Senior Classification event of the season.
McCreery replaces John Murphy who is now ranked No 2, while Na, who represented Great Britain at the London Olympics, replaces Ashley Givan who drops to No 3 below Na and Amanda Mogey.
Among the junior players improving their senior ranking positions are Li Shizhao who moves to No 10 on the men’s list and Hannah Lynch-Dawson ranked No 4 of the women. Next up for senior players is the Leinster Grand Prix in DCU on the weekend of October 27/28.
Abroad, Teresa Devaney won both the singles and doubles in the over 60 age group at the Turkish Veterans Open in Belek, Turkey. Devaney was also runner-up in the mixed doubles.
SQUASH: Carlow players provide all four singles finalists at a well-supported Munster Squash Open spread across three venues in Cork. Claire O’Neill beat Ciara Maloney to take the women’s A title, while in the men’s final, Irish international player Arthur Gaskin was made to work for his title by Brian Byrne. Earlier, Byrne had put out the No 1 seed Graeme Stewart from Belfast in his first match and then beat Niall Rooney for a place in the final. In his semi-final, Gaskin was given a tough test by the evergreen Derek Ryan, only winning 3-2.
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