The Irish Mixed Martial Arts Association recently announced the inaugural Irish Open Youth MMA Championships for athletes aged 12-17 on December 11, 2022. The event will be held at SBG Ireland HQ in Dublin, and the federation hopes to run the competition annually.
The tournament marks a significant step for the federation as it continues to focus on youth development. At the most recent set of Youth World Championships, Ireland finished fifth on the medal table with ten medals overall.
The competition is open to members of IMMAF-affiliated federations from anywhere in the world. The tournament format will be a round-robin for any category with up to four competitors. For categories with five or more, it will be double elimination, meaning a competitor who loses two matches will be eliminated.
Similar to the IMMAF Youth World Championships, gold, silver and 2 Bronze will be awarded for each division, and categories will be run according to age. Smoothcomp will be the software used for the competition and will show approximate times for each bout, along with the brackets and results.
In the case where a division has only one athlete registered, a refund will be provided. No automatic gold medals will be awarded, as all athletes must compete in at least one bout to receive a medal.
Speaking about the event, IMMAA’s Marlene Griffin added:
“IMMAA is super excited as December will be our inaugural event which we hope to run annually and hope to see it grow over the years. Since the introduction of the Youth event in IMMAF, our sport is benefiting hugely as it forms a great progression for Youth to take part in age-appropriate rules in order to become future MMA competitors with a wealth of experience. Because Youths only have the world championships, we hope the Irish Open for Youths will be another valuable platform for our future stars.”
