Tyrone Handballers Compete in World Championship Finals

Today is a very historic day for Tyrone handball as no fewer than four players from the county stake their claim for world championship honours in the Citywest Arena in Dublin.
Caolan Daly, Ciaran Curran, Aoife Kelly and Lorcan McBride have all come through quality fields in their respective competitions and stand on the threshold of something massive.
Caolan has produced some magnificent handball so far, especially in his quarter-final against Limerick’s CJ Fitzpatrick, which went right to the wire before Caolan prevailed 11-9 in the tiebreaker, and against the number one seed Mayo’s Stephen Cooney in the semi-final who was despatched in two straight games.
The Carrickmore dual star is playing the best handball of his career and now faces Clare star Diarmaid Nash for the world title, another huge challenge for him but one he is ready to meet.
The match is fixed for 2.00pm in the wonderful showcourt at the Citywest, which was rocking last night for Paul Brady’s incredible mens open world final triumph against brilliant American Luis Moreno.
Ciaran Curran’s comeback at the top level has taken him all the way to the world over 35 singles final following two classy displays yesterday against Mayo’s Paul Flynn and defending champion, Gavin Buggy fromWexford, whom he beat 21-11, 21-11.
The Loughmacrory man has rolled back the years with the quality of his handball and takes on Kerry’s Dominic Lynch for the world crown later today (5.00pm).
Aoife Kelly has chalked up some great wins in these world championships at under-15 level and recorded a fantastic semi-final result this morning against Armagh’s highly rated Aoife McConville.
The Loughmacrory star amazingly faces another Armagh girl, Niamh Coleman, in the decider (4.00pm) after the talented Clann Eireann girl saw off the top seed Fiona Tully. It should be another cracking affair in the final.
Lorcan McBride has come through one of the toughest fields of all the world championships and now finds himself in the last two of the under-11 competition which started out with 92 players. His form has been flawless so far and he has risen to the occasion in some style.
Lorcan, son of former Tyrone player Ciaran, has put together a string of superb victories to make it through to the biggest game of his short career, including a quarter-final win over Loughmacrory hope Antoin Fox and an impressive semi-final triumph over Kilkenny’s Jack Holden.
Other players such as Johnny Woods, Patrick McCrory and Lisa McAleer have also played some great handball to reach the latter stages of their respective 40×20 singles competitions.
Overall these world championships have been an incredible success and the Tyrone players have done their county proud in all competitions. There’s plenty more handball to come between now and Sunday, including most of the doubles and one wall competitions, and there are high hopes of more Tyrone success before the championships end.
But for now, four world finals today is a good start! Good luck to Caolan, Ciaran, Aoife and Lorcan.