The July winner was Leixlip native Jacqui O'Shea who returned home from the SKIF World Karate Championships with a gold medal proudly hung round her neck. After 33 years' involvement in the sport Jacqui finally fulfilled a life long ambition when she
captured the gold medal in Athens.
"It was a lifetime ambition for me because I've been involved in karate for the past 33 years. In Düsseldorf I won a silver medal in 1986 in the individual event and I have won European golds but had never won a world so it was something that was always in the back of my mind.
I stopped competing for five years through a knee injury and I came back hoping and my dream came true quicker than I thought," admitted Jacqui, who has now set her sights on retaining her title at the 2012 World Champion-ships in Australia.
August was a remarkable month for Kildare athletics with both Rose Anne Galligan and Sandra Lawlor claiming gold medals at the Woodies DIY Senior Track and Field Championships in the 800m and the 100m hurdles respectively.
Rose Anne is currently in South Africa training and her proud parents picked up her award last Wednesday, while Sandra took time to look back on her wonderful achievement.
"I was very pleased with my performance because it has been a long season and I had my Leaving Cert to concentrate on as well. I never really thought it was possible, I was a bit nervous because I was so young to be running in the senior championships but when I looked at the starting list I kind of felt confident, so going in to the race I had high hopes. Half way through the race I was feeling great and I flew over the hurdles," she said.
Since her superb win, Sandra has taken up an athletics scholarship at DCU, where she is studying business and has now set her sights on the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janeiro.
The month of September was indeed a remarkable one for the Salmon Leap Canoe Club, even though they are no strangers to success.
Ireland's premier canoe club captured no less than 14 medals in the reknowned Liffey Decent, while young Jenny Egan finished sixth in her category at the world championships.
Club Chairman Malcolm Banks accepted the award on behalf of the club he couldn't have been more proud of his canoeists.
"Our members won 14 medals in the Liffey Decent. We won junior and senior K1 and we won the veteran's K1 as well and many other minor placings in the race. The entire World Championship Marathon team that represented Ireland was from Salmon Leap Canoe Club and our best result was Jenny Egan, who was sixth in the Ladies U23 K1. It was a really amazing achievement. Jenny is a former bronze medal winner at junior level at the World Championships too," he explained.
The Salmon Leap Club has a unique heritage as it is the only club in Ireland that has had a representative at every Olympic Games since Munich in 1972 and no doubt they will be back to pick up more of these awards in the future.
