Carlow's Tegan targets world stage in Greece

13-year-old Tegan Middleton from Carlow Muay Thai in Bagenalstown will be representing Ireland at the 2026 IFMA (International Federation of Muaythai Associations) Youth World Championships in Olympia, Greece, competing in the U14 -40kg category.

Tegan’s coach, Sean Dillon, spoke with The Nationalist about the scale of the achievement. 

“Tegan has already shown what she can do on the international stage. Last year she proudly represented Team Ireland at the IFMA Youth World Championships in Abu Dhabi, where she battled her way to a bronze medal after a strong semi-final performance,” Dillon explained “Over the last year she has continued to grow in experience, confidence and maturity every time she steps into the ring. What stands out about Teagan is her focus, determination and willingness to keep learning. She keeps showing up, putting the work in and testing herself against high-level opposition.

“Now she gets another opportunity to put on the Irish colours and return to one of the biggest youth Muay Thai stages in the world.” Tegan has been with Calow Muay Thai for over four years, competing nationally and internationally for the last three years.

“She competed this year in Liverpool, where she won. She was actually fighting a girl a little older than her and won very convincingly,” Dillon told us.

“She had a few more fights this year at various events in Ireland - won them as well. We're finding it hard to get her opponents at the moment. She's sparring the lads in the club there because we don't have anyone her age. We had one girl with her, Dana DeLacey, but unfortunately, she got injured and she hasn't been able to train.

“Dana actually won a bronze as well last year over in the World Championships, but she had a difficulty with her hip and she's been held up over the last nearly year with it, unfortunately.

“We're limited. Our biggest problem is getting proper spars for Tegan, because she's training quite hard and it's difficult to do certain things with her when you don't have proper sparring for her. It's difficult because it is a minority sport as well, so there's a limited pool of young fighters.

“She's doing a lot of training at the moment, about five nights a week up to last week. She's up to seven nights a week training now, and she's off next week in the mid-terms there Halloween, so she'll be training non-stop before we head over (to Greece).” 

Dillon is something of a trailblazer in Irish Muay Thay, and has put 35 of love, blood, sweat and tears into his facility. “The gym has been in operation since 1991. I set it up myself. it operates out of a purpose-built gym in Bagenalstown,” he explained.

“We have about 40 members. We'd have about 15 younger members and about 25 older members. We do martial arts, we do Muay Thai, we do just fitness. Some people come in and just want to do a bit of fitness, self-defence, and it's also just a kind of social aspect as well for one or two of the older guys just to come in and meet people.

“We have plenty of coaches; there's myself, there's John Jacob, Kevin Kavanagh and Peter O'Carroll - and Eric Black helps out with the club also. We have good backing from our own lads; Kevin and Peter were previous fighters in the club that trained years ago and they're now trainers themselves, helping out, which is great to have.

“I fought myself in the 80s and 90s as well in Thai boxing. I was one of the first lads to do it in Ireland because it was a very minority sport then. I used to fight abroad a lot because there wasn’t much in Ireland. It’s nice to see the progression of the sport through the years. It has progressed in Ireland well, and we have actually some good fighters.”