Congratulations to Alan Walsh who won a Silver Medal at the Belgian Junior
Open in the team event at Spa, Belgium.
Here Alan teamed up with two of his training partners from time he spent practicing in Germany – Estonias Alexandr Lusin and Moldova’s Andrei Putintica, making them a truly international line-up. They entered the competitin as the third seeded team in the five team group behind Russia and the home team
Belgium. In a tough opening game against the host nation, the Irish/Estonian/Moldovan combination lost out 1/3 with Alan losing out to Florian
Cnudde. In a titanic struggle in the second match against Russia it went down
to the final game with Alan’s team mate Alexandr Lusin winning 16/14 in the
fifth set.
The third match was also a close affair but the Belgium/Canada combination
won out 3/1 so it was all down to the final game.The Ireland/Estonia/Moldova
combination had to defeat the Belgium/Luxembourg team 3/0 to secure second
spot and a coveted silver medal. At 2/0 up the pressure was on Alan to secure
the third victory. In a confident and powerful display he outgunned
Luxembourgs Tom Hoffman 3/1 to claim the silver medal.