Taekwondo Ireland’s Jack Woolley was on the road again hunting points for the Olympic Qualifiers coming in January.
His last ranking event of the year was based in Agadir, Morocco at the 1st Moroccan Open Championships.
The team flew to Marrakesh and drove south to the host city. In his -54kg division Jack was seeded 2nd due to his ranking points achieved previously.
This led to him having a bye in the 1st Round allowing him watch his prospective opponent compete in the preliminaries.
In the 2nd round jack saw off Aubin Konate of Burkina Faso finishing the match early 22-5 by the 12 point gap rule [matches are ended at the end of the 2nd round if the margin exceeds 12 points].
In the ¼ finals jack was up against Saudi Arabian Ali Asiri who started strong, but once jack found his momentum he could not compete with his kicking, this match was once again ended early 21-9 sending Jack into the semis and a definite podium finish.
His next bout was against a tall Tunisian Mohamed Grami who looked like a tough challenge as he saw off former European Champion and Spanish seed earlier. Jack maintained great composure and won the match 11-4 with a very professional display of match containment.
This lead to the final most would have expected a showdown with the current African Games Champion and Egyptian number one Moaz Nabil in a nail biting affair. Nabil lead the match throughout and spent almost 6 minutes doing all he could to avoid Jacks signature head kicks, all the while he was receiving deductions for avoiding play.
Wolley was behind 12-11 with just seconds to go, and with the last exchange, Jack drew the score 12-12 and the Egyptian was disqualified for his 10th offence [10 half point deductions leading to 5 minus points] and forfeited the match.
Another senior gold, and most importantly, 10 ranking points to add to his collection.
