Tullow team makes its mark on European stage

Tullow-based Jordan Fitness is celebrating a wonderful achievement, after five students and a coach made the trip to Lisbon, Portugal, to compete at the European Jiu Jitsu Championships.

Owner, operator and Head Coach, Keith Jordan, spoke with The Nationalist to detail the scale of his school’s remarkable accomplishment.

“We started about eight years ago, just doing one or two kids’ classes, but we’re probably got over 100 (students) there now.” he explained.

“I'm a personal trainer myself, so we're doing personal training as well as loads of other classes; we have Jiu Jitsu for adults and for kids, we do mixed martial arts, we do Muay Thai, and then we do one-to-one personal training as well. So, we kind of cater for everyone. We also have a lot of coaches there now as well that do Pilates and fitness classes and so on.”.

Jordan is extremely proud of his school’s representation on the national stage, telling us, “From a little town like Tullow, we were up against serious teams out there in Portugal - and even my own daughter was fighting in it as well; she got a silver medal, but the girl that beat her was a full-time athlete. She was sponsored and paid to be there.

“Some of the kids out there, they train twice a day, every day, at age 15. We're training a couple of times a week here in a small town in Tullow, and still we're either coming very close to winning these, or in some cases even winning them, which is unbelievable.” Jordan Fitness had six members involved in the European Championships, earning a gold, two silvers and two bronze medals. The six involved were Eabha Nolan (gold) (age 10); Kayley Jordan (silver) (15); Jack Baird (bronze) (15); Jay Bohanna (bronze) (11); Bobby Jordan (11); and Coach Jordan himself, who won silver in the Adult No-Gi Open.

“For me as a coach, it’s just unbelievable to see the standard and the fight that our kids have,” Jordan said. “Not one of them were outclassed or anything, it was just a couple of little points here and there and that was it. We're right up there with the best in the world, which is incredible.

“For us to bring out five kids here from Tullow and go up against some of the best teams in the world is amazing. There’s a serious standard that we're up against. So even to be competing with them guys is amazing.

And then for Eabha to win her division and to be a European Jiu-Jitsu champion - I suppose it wouldn't mean a lot to everyone, but to be a European Champion in anything is amazing; to come from a little town in Tullow and go out and do that is incredible.”