The sporting achievements of Ulster’s young athletes were rewarded recently during the latest round of Linwoods Sporting Excellence Awards. The Linwoods Awards are administrated by the Mary Peters Trust and, despite her demanding schedule, Dame Mary insisted on personally congratulating the latest winners. Mary praised their success by saying;  ”It is a true delight to see young sports people achieve such high standards of excellence and Linwoods  Foods is to be congratulated for helping the Trust to encourage top sporting achievement in Ulster with these awards.” 

Murakwai’s Jodie Kee is pictured below receiving her award from Dame Mary Peters.

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Starting next Tuesday 18th May, Murakwai Judo Club will be back in Ballybeen in the brand new Enler Community Centre (The Enler Complex, Craigleith Drive, Dundonald, BT16 2QP).  Classes will run from 6.30-7.30pm for 5-9 year olds, 7.30-8.30pm for 10-15 year olds and 8.30-9.15pm for 16years+.  Murakwai Judo Club was founded in Ballybeen Activity Centre in 1982.

It was an excellent day for Daniel Mayhew at the Cavan Open, he won Gold in the Cadets (u17) at u55kgs and then moved up to u60kgs where he again won Gold. Alan Kerr fought extremely well in his first competition at u81kgs, he won Gold in the Juniors (u20) and Silver in the Seniors only losing to former Irish International Paul Cummings, 6th Dan. There were also 3 players representing the club in the Minors (u13), Daniel Hodgett won Silver in his first competition at his new weight in the u45kgs, Faye Nixon won Bronze at u33kgs & Conor Kelly won Bronze in the u41kgs. Congratulations to everyone who took part!

An excellent performance from Kirsty Kee in the u52kg category at the NI Open seen her win Gold in the Juniors and then a superb Silver in the Seniors. There were also medals in the Seniors for 2 other girls who train at Murakwai. Olga Lyashevska won Bronze in the u70kg category & Renata Urbanaite won Bronze in the u78kg category. Alan Kerr, Rory Kelly & Chris Connolly all competed well for the club but unfortunately they didn’t get into the medals. The 3 girls, Kirsty, Olga & Renata were the only NIJF players to medal in either the Juniors or the Seniors at this British Ranking event, held in Queen’s PEC, Belfast.

Rory Kelly was awarded his 1st Dan Black Belt at today’s Multi-Dan event at the Hammer Youth Centre in Belfast. Rory won all 5 of his fights with the maximum Ippon score, the last 3 of which were one after the other in a line-up. In the same event Adam McCune gained his 1st 10 points & James McCullough another 20 toward their Black Belts. Alan Kerr was unlucky not to get any points toward his 2nd Dan, Simon Mackey fought well and earned 22 points toward his 3rd Dan & Scott Mayne gained another 20 points toward his 4th Dan. Congratulations to everyone who took part & a big thank you to Sarah Beattie & Andrea Bingham for organising a fantastic event!