Turkish Open 2019
Jack Woolley made a big statement of intent at one of the years earliest World Taekwondo Ranking Events. In what has been described by his Coach as the most impressive performance of his career to date, the 20 year old from Jobstown stood on the top tier of the podium after a busy day on the mats. The event with 1500 individual entries was fully loaded with some of the best fighters in the world as the scramble for selection for May’s world championships happens in many countries. This being a pre-Olympic year the entries in Woolley’s -58kg division included a total of 50 athletes looking to take an early lead in this years ranking points collection. As a high seed, Jack had a bye in the round of 64 giving him a chance to view his first opponent who would either be from Kyrgyzstan or Turkey. The local won setting up a round of 32 match with Musa Cetin who Jack overcame in the 2nd round with the score at 23-3 the opposition withdrew. Potentially Jacks biggest test of the day was to be his round of 16 opponent Amir Valipour of Iran. The Iranian current world junior champion transitioned to senior this year leading to a very strong player having no senior seeding. After a tentative start from both athletes Jack pulled away with the score ending 19-10. Jacks quarter final encounter was with the tall Azerbaijan athlete Ali Mammadov. After some time of getting to know one another, jacks strength of kicks overcame and he won 25-5. Now guaranteed a medal, Kazakhstan’s Aituar Shaikenov, a very lively Fighter was to be jacks challenger. In a an excellent display of energy & match management from Woolley, while jack was 22-6 ahead the Kazakh Fighter pulled out as he was too fatigued to continue into the 2nd round. Jacks fifth & final match of the day was to be against World Medalist Gashim Magomedov of Azerbaijan. A other liveky fighter who usually dazzles his opponents with his ring activity was shut down by Woolley. The final match ended by point gap 40-19. Accompanying Jack was his coach Robert Taaffe who noted, ‘Jack didn’t just win matches today, he devastated one of the strongest pools of players I’ve seen at an open tournament. We made a few positive adjustments, our video replay was working well & we hope to carry this mentality & performance to Vegas at the US Open in a fortnight.’