Posts in category: Para

   Butterfly National Junior Championships 2013                                              

Sunday 21^st of April saw Irish junior para table tennis players compete in their National Championships. This event was staged at ALSAA in Dublin and was hosted by ITTA . This is the second year running where the junior disability event was included as part of the national championships programme. This year it was a 32 county event with competitors from Northern Ireland also competing. Mostly the results went to form. Overall the standard of play was very high and we saw some very competitive matches.

In all there were 4 disability events:

Boys standing event, Boys wheelchair event, Girls disability event, Plate.

The winner of the boys standing event was Paddy Vaughan and the winner of the boys wheelchair event was Galway’s Jack Colbert.

The winner of the Disability event was Galway’s Sinead Keon.

Galway Speeder’s newest recruit and novice player Dylan O’Boyle was the winner of the plate. Dylan came out after tough opposition from fellow Galway Speeder Jessica Burke and from Munster’s Sean Og.

During the day there were some truly memorable battles. In particular, Mark Henderson lost in deuce 5^th set to Alex Hennebry in what was probably the match of the day.  Alex came out on top putting in a great performance.

It was great to see so many young players competing in such a competitive environment and as Ronan Rooney, Head Coach for Galway Speeders said, “it augers well for the future of para table tennis in Ireland when we see such talent among our juniors.” 

Irish Players celebrate the 4th Of July

A Big Medal Haul from the US Open for Irish Players made the journey home all that sweeter for London 2012 hopefuls, Eimear Breathnach, Rena Mc Carron Rooney, Philip Quinlan and Ronan Rooney.

In their determination for qualification for the PARALYMPIC GAMES IN LONDON 2012 these four players travelled to the US Open in Milwaukee in an event outside of their scheduled program.

It was certainly worth the trip bringing back one of the best collection of medals for Irish players in recent years.

In The Women’s Class One/Two Event Eimear Breathnach won Gold and Rena Mc Carron Rooney Silver.

Men’s Class 1 Philip Quinlan picked up Gold to add to his collection, while team mate Ronan Rooney was very unlucky to be seeded on an extremely tough side of off the draw in Class 2.

Ronan’s disappointment was short lived as both he and Philip picked up Silver medals in the Team Class 1 / 2 events.

In the Ladies Team which consisted of Class 1-5 players, Eimear and Rena put up a strong fight against Class 5 opponents but failed to get out of there group.

The Galway Speeders Club celebrated its first birthday at the weekend by hosting a National Paralympic Novice Table Tennis Championships. The event was held at the Commercial Boat Club and was attended by competitors from Dublin, Meath, Sligo, Cork and Galway.

The event was a great success and saw the coming of age of some fine players. It is also the culmination of a year of training and practice at the Kingfisher every Saturday morning.

In total, there were five competitions. The Open was won by Christine Doyle from Meath, Silver went to Garreth Greene from Dublin while Bronze was secured by Sligo’s Aidan Hynes.           

The Standing Class was won by Aidan Hynes and silver went to Rao Rapolu from Galway.

The Junior Boys Wheelchair Event was won by Galway’s Jack Colbert and Silver was won by Galway’s Mark Henderson.  Bronze went to Cork with Sean Og Nash. 

The Junior Girls Wheelchair Event was won by Annie O’Callaghan from Cork, while Silver went to Jessica Burke who defeated Shauna Bouquet for Bronze in an exciting match.

The Senior Wheelchair Event was won by Christine Doyle who played exceptionally well all day. There were many notable matches, in particular, Galway’s Jack Colbert lost out narrowly, 11-9 in the fifth set, in the semi-final of the Open to the eventual gold medallist, Christine.

National Paralympic Table Tennis coach Paul Dolan said that “It is really exciting to see such talent within our junior ranks and we look forward to them joining our senior panel”.

The Galway Speeders would like to thank Carnmore Brownies for ball girl duties throughout the day. We would also like to thank our sponsors, Kingfisher at NUI Galway, Galway County Sports Partnership and Galway City Sports Partnership for their support throughout the year.

Also, thank you to volunteers, parents and everyone who assisted the club throughout the year. Table tennis for athletes with a physical disability will resume in the autumn at the Kingfisher and all are welcome to attend.

See below for full results

Open Event

Gold  – Christine Doyle

Silver  – Garreth Green

Bronze  – Aidan Hynes

Standing Class

Gold – Aidan Hynes

Silver – Rao Rapolu

Junior Boys Wheelchair

Gold – Jack Colbert

Silver – Mark Henderson

Bronze – Sean Og Nash

Junior Girls Wheelchair

Gold – Annie O’Callaghan

Silver – Jessica Burke

Bronze – Shauna Bouquet

Senior Wheelchair Event

Gold – Christine Doyle

Silver – Garreth Greene

Bronze – Gary Allen

For the third successive year the IWA National Table Tennis Championships was held in partnership with the Irish Table Tennis Association National Championships at the excellent ALSAA sports complex Dublin Airport.

Playing commenced at 9.30am with Wheelchair Men’s and Ladies Single’s as usual at any wheelchair event players were determined to prove their worth and they provided an excellent days Table Tennis of the highest standard.

In the ladies Kathleen Reynolds was looking to hold on to her title with wins over Eimear Breathnach and ever improving Christine Doyle, But it was the raider from the west in the shape of Rena Mc Carron Rooney who came through the day beating all before her without dropping a set, and take her first National Ladies Title a measure of the improvement in her game over the last year.

In the Men’s competition Michael Cunningham was there to retain his title but several of his rivals had other ideas.

In a nail biting battle semi final John Finn lost out to training partner Paul Mc Evoy in a close 5 setter. While in the other semi  John Dempsey tried  to contain the attacking capabilities of Mick Cunningham, Mick proved to strong and went on to meet Paul Mc Evoy in the final played on center court winning an entertaining  best of 7 set match 4 nil. New recruit Gareth Greene made his debut in this event with a performance showing his potential for the future

In after noon the mixed doubles competition was held this time Mick Cunningham teamed up with John Dempsey to win this event in a top class match beating the Hungarian Open bound pairing of Ronan Rooney and Philip Quinlan.

National Coach Paul Dolan felt it was an excellent day’s table tennis with some great performances from individual players and a great preparation for squad members travelling to the Hungarian Open this week as part of their Paralympic qualification program.

NEWSFLASH – Hungary Open Results

Philip Quinlan narrowly missed out on a gold medal in the Class 1 Mens losing a hard fought final and takes a Silver medal.While in the Ladies Class 1/2 Rena Mc Carron Rooney brings home the Bronze.Rooney and partner Eimear Breatneach reach semi final ladies double on Sunday.