Over a period when lesser-known sports in UCD have triumphed, UCD Karate Club has been the perfect example of a well-run and successful club. From individual achievements to team effort, this was one of UCD Karate Club’s greatest years, with wins in the Intercollegiate Cup and All-Ireland Intervarsities making it the top-ranked university karate club – and one of the top karate clubs – in the country.
For every winning team, there is strong leadership – in this case captain Callum Terry and coaches Bill Hayden, Ashling McNabb and Darragh O’Kelly.
In March 2019, UCD President, Professor Andrew J Deeks, recognised Terry’s leadership for Excellence in Student Activities at the President’s Awards, which took place at a ceremony in O’Reilly Hall.
Each year these awards recognise those students who excel in extracurricular activities of a kind that make UCD an exciting, interesting, dynamic and humane place to live, study and work. Recipients of awards are typically engaged in service to UCD societies, clubs or the Students’ Union, are involved in support services for fellow students or have excelled in competitive activity in the University or in Intervarsity events.
UCD Karate Club’s recent victory at the Intercollegiate Cup showed how the 23-person club has gone from strength to strength, resulting in impressive growth in membership numbers, stellar results in national tournaments, as well as team training camps and social evenings which make the club feel like a community as well as a sports club.
It also received the Varsity Club of the Year Award at the Bank of Ireland UCD Athletic Union Council Sports Awards ceremony in March 2019 and finished the academic year on a high in April 2019, at the All-Ireland Intervarsities at DCU. Having conceded the Intervarsity Cup the previous two years, the UCD team were underdogs, but fought hard to bring the title back to Belfield and regain their position as All Ireland Champions.