Carlow Muay Thai athlete is Abu Dhabi bound

Saoirse Hogan Balfe later this year will be embarking on a trip of a lifetime as she heads to represent Ireland at the IFMA Youth World Championships in Abu Dhabi from the 10th to 20th September.

The 12-year-old has already had an incredible career to date as she has already claimed gold at the IFMA Interclub competition in 2023 and she picked up a silver medal at Welsh amateur open, last year.

Saoirse has showed incredible resilience and mental strength in recent years, she was recently a part-time wheelchair user, but now she has her eyes set on glory at this year’s world championships, according to her mother, Sinead.

“We’re just so proud of her, what she has achieved. Saoirse started the sport about two years ago in Carlow Muay Thai club, and the club have just been fantastic, the coaches. Saoirse has autism and she was a part-time wheelchair user, so to see her from being a wheelchair to competing in Muay Thai, it just shows anyone can do it, anything is possible. Look it's incredible to think she has been chosen for team Ireland at this World Championships. To be honest I didn’t want her to take up Muay Thai. She had seen Chloe Black on tv and was inspired by her I suppose. She was adamant she wanted to take up the sport.” 

Sinead stated that Muay Thai has done incredible things for Saoirse’s self-confidence, and that she is really looking forward to the upcoming tournament in Abu Dhabi.

“She’s gained incredible self-confidence from the sport, it’s phenomenal. Before Saoirse’s form of communication might have been having her teddy in front of her face, she was really shy and now she’s in the ring competing at the highest level. We went to visit the amusements there in Tramore because the coaches at the club said Saoirse needed to get used to the noise of the arena. Saoirse had her ear defenders on but when we arrived, she just took them off and started walking around, like even just something like that is just incredible. Like even she has built up her muscle tone and it’s given her confidence. She’s one of very few kids to compete at this level with extra needs. She trains four or five nights a week and she does PT sessions with Chloe. You see things like this in a movie, and you don’t think it’ll happen to you, it’s just amazing” Speaking about the financial demands of travelling to the World Championships in September, Sinead said it is very costly to get Saoirse to the competition and that all financial support from local businesses and people is greatly appreciated.

“So, there’s about 15 kids going to represent Ireland and one of them is Saoirse. Saoirse will be over there for 10 days and myself, one of her siblings and her nanny will be travelling over also. Unfortunately, you can only travel over for all 10 days, you can’t just go for five days for example. It’s a serious amount of money, we have a go fund me set up on gofundme,com for people to donate to support Saoirse and help her get to Abu Dhabi. The go fund me page will be open until the end of the summer. I suppose we want to create awareness that anyone can do this.”