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