Ella Murtagh WAKO European Championships 2025

Following her return to competing last year after an 18 month layoff, Ella travelled to the WAKO World Championships in Budapest. Only 2 months back to full training, she returned home with a bronze medal in a new weight and age division, a serious achievement after such a long time out.

This year, the WAKO European championships will take place in Portugal in September and she’s determined to return with the gold, emulating her previous success - double WAKO European Champion 2021 and WAKO World Championship 2022 title. Ella holds multiple WAKO World & European Cup gold medals & National titles in Ireland.

In preparation for the European Championship, there are a number of European and World Cups taking place this year - all ranked events which contribute to your ranking within your division and seeding at the Championships themselves. Ella attended the Italian World Cup in March, bringing home a bronze medal. She is planning to attend the Croatian European Cup in May and the Hungarian World Cup in June in preparation of the European Championships.

There is no funding at all for youths representing Ireland in the WAKO competitions. Sport Ireland allocates no funds to kickboxing, despite it being a recognised Olympic Sport. WAKO ranked competitions are all abroad and the cost of travel, accommodation, competition fees, uniform, sparring gear etc is all left to the parents to fund - a huge undertaking. A standard trip to a European/World Championship can cost between €3,000 - 4,000 and a World/European Cup anywhere between €1,000 - €1,500 per trip.

With this in mind, Ella’s representation of Ireland this year will cost anywhere between €6,000 - €8,000 just to travel to compete. We were lucky to get her trip to the World Championships 2024 in Budapest fully sponsored by some generous companies and individuals and this year, I am hoping to raise funds to get her to Portugal

Thanks a million