Irishman Conor Grassick gets gold at the Belgian open

Source: Irish Taekwondo Union

Success for Irishman Conor Grassick at the A Class Belgian International Open

Ireland’s WTF Olympic Taekwondo player Conor Grassick brought home Gold from the A Class Belgian Open last weekend having beaten 6 international athletes throughout the day.

Grassick, who fights in the Senior Male -63kg category, had an early start to the day in preparation for his first fight against Poland’s Patryk Rodzik (winner of the Dutch Open 2010) winning the fight in style scoring 5 points to his opponent’s 2.

His second match against Finland’s Sami Lahtinen, went to a 4-4 draw leading to a sudden death/golden point round which Conor successfully won!

Conor was back on the mats early in the afternoon for his third match Britain’s Jibreel Malik which he went on to win 8-5. Within the hour he was back in the ring for the quarter-final against the Belarus national champion and the 2009 European Champion Pavel Kulakou. It was a tightly contested match with Conor eventually winning by 3 points to 2.

With only a half an hour rest Conor then had his fifth match, a semi-final against the world ranked Jaouad Achab from Belgium, who recently won in both the Swedish and German Opens. Conor brought this gruelling match to an 8-8 draw and then went onto win it in the sudden death round delivering a stunning 3 point kick to his opponents head and putting him through to the final against Germany’s Hamza Adman Karim.

Grassick went into the final having beaten 5 opponents, with only 30 minutes of rest from the semi-final and put on a great performance winning 2-1 and taking the Gold for Ireland!

Conor is now setting his sights on medalling in the European Under 21 Championships in Moldova on 18th April. He is the only Irish athlete to travel to this competition with coach Stig Kramer and we wish him the very best of luck. Conor will be featured on FYI a 3E (TV3) programme next Thursday keep an eye on the ITU Facebook page for further updates.

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