KARATE KID bully BILLY ZABKA has topped a poll of 'movie dicks' in a new GQ magazine survey. The champion wrestler played blond JOHNNY LAWRENCE in the cult 1984 martial arts movie, and has beaten out WEDDING CRASHERS' jock ZACHARY LODGE and NATIONAL LAMPOON'S ANIMAL HOUSE character GREG MARMALADE to top the GQ poll.

A team from the UCD Karate club competed in the Intervarsities hosted by NUI Galway on the 25th of February. The club competes in this competition every year in which almost every University and I.T. in the 32 counties is represented. Over the years UCD has taken home the overall trophy an unprecedented number of times.

On the day, first up was the 10th Kyu – 8th Kyu (white to red belt) Individual Kata competition which saw an early start to the medals with a second place in the women’s competition. The mens competition saw a huge number of competitors but in their first competition UCD’s Eoin Rafter and Eoin O’Neill represented the club well and gained great experience for next year.

Aisling O’Hagan and Caroline Benson saw off many competitors and progressed up through their category until they were within the final few in both the 7th Kyu – 6th Kyu (yellow to green belt) Individual Kata and Kumite (sparring) competitions. Aisling made it to the final of the Kata in which she was awarded second place and gained a place in the Kumite finals to be held at the end of the day. Aisling and Caroline also competed in the team Kumite and won first place gaining maximum points in the competition for the overall trophy.

In the Men’s 7th Kyu – 6th Kyu Individual Kumite, Steven McNamara had some hard luck when he was knocked out of the Kumite competition. However, Steven was also in other competitions as we will see later. Paul Buckmaster put up some very skilled and controlled fights to impress all and was unfortunate to receive an injury following an uncontrolled Jodan (chin level) punch . After some medical attention he bravely fought on and went on to beat this particular opponent. There were a huge number of competitors and Paul progressed very well up through these.

In the Men’s 6th Kyu – 4th Kyu (green to second purple belt) Team Kata UCD’s Brian Wynne, Paul Buckmaster and Steven McNamara did the club proud by coming in joint second place with DCU after being given identical marks. However, only first and second places were awarded so UCD and DCU came up against eachother for second place. As a result of this the lads came in third place. They were up again for the Team Kumite. A second injury occurred, this time to Brian, nevertheless, in true UCD Karate style , he fought on. The lads were up against some very skilled individual competitors and made it to the semi-finals.

Kathleen Tierney showed her talent for Kumite when she competed in the Women’s 6th Kyu – 4th Kyu Individual Kumite and reached the final which, like Aisling’s, was to be held at the end of the day. Kathleen competed with Breege Doherty and Mary O’Flynn in the 3rd Kyu + (brown belt and above) Team Kumite. This competition gave a wonderful display of high level Kumite. The girls put in a huge effort and were delighted to come in first place following some close calls with draws against other competitors.

Despite the fact that they were both from UCD, Breege and Mary were put up against eachother in the first round of their individual Kumite. Both handled this somewhat awkward situation well and Mary progressed on to the next round. In fact, Mary also went on to reach the end of the day’s finals.

The competition ended with the Individual Kumite finals in which UCD had three competitors. UCD, Trinity and UCC were all in close contention for the cup and all was to play for. Aisling put in a great effort in a closely contested fight and came in second place in her competition. Kathleen, a first purple belt encouraged from her win against a black belt in the Team Kumite, won her fight to come in first place. Our last competitor and black belt Mary saw UCD to a great finish that day when she also won her final to bring home her own trophy ‘Sarah’. Well done!

With the results of these finals the UCD team were overjoyed to come in first place just ahead of UCC by a mere two points. A great weekend w