The oneills.com World 4-Wall Handball Championships serve off on Saturday at the National Handball Centre in Croke Park and various Leinster venues, with almost 1,700 entries from Ireland, the USA, Canada, Mexico and Japan.
The elite Open grades commence on Monday – all of those games will be played at Croke Park – with many of the other divisions beginning on Saturday.
The tournament will run until the following Sunday, 3 November, with huge interest centred on the elite grades, which have attracted stellar fields in the Men's and Ladies Open divisions.
The Men’s Open is arguably the strongest line-up assembled in decades, with 17 overseas players making the trip, augmenting a very strong Irish line-up.
The field is headed by Texas-based Galway man Martin Mulkerrins. A full-time handball coach and lecturer at Texas A&M University in College Station, the Moycullen man has been very successful on the American pro circuit, winning five events in succession in recent months.
Team Ireland men’s captain is Westmeath’s Robbie McCarthy while also in the mix for the Irish men are Cork native and Boston resident Killian Carroll, a former number one in the States, and 2022 All-Ireland Senior Singles champion Diarmaid Nash.
The main overseas challengers will include Mexican brothers Luis and Daniel Cordova as well as 22-year-old Illinois man Ray Ure, who excels across a range of sporting disciplines and is regarded as the rising star of American handball, having recently made the final of a major professional tournament for the first time.
The Irish women’s captain is former Roscommon footballer Fiona Tully, who reached the final of the All-Ireland Senior Singles earlier this year. She fell to Cork’s Catriona Casey in that decider but Casey is unfortunately ruled out having sustained an ACL tear during the World Wallball Championships at the University of Limerick 10 weeks ago.
Former world champion Martina McMahon, who won the Wallball title, will also be expected to go very well, as will Tyrone left-hander Eilise McCrory and New York’s Danielle Daskalakis, who defeated Tully in the final of the American Nationals earlier this year.
The Open Doubles, as always, are a minefield. The official Team Ireland reps are McCarthy and Mayo’s Joe McCann, with Galway pair Ciana Ní Churraoin and Niamh Heffernan carrying Team Ireland’s hopes in the Ladies Doubles.
The opening ceremony took place in Kilkenny on Thursday night, with GAA Ard Stiurthóir Tom Ryan referencing the strong links between handball and the other GAA codes.
"Participation and popularity are the lifeforce of any sport and it is no exaggeration to say that this is an exciting time for the sport of handball," he said.
"We already witnessed this at the Wallball World Championships in Limerick, where the global growth and surge in interest and numbers in Ireland was very evident.
"Yet again we have seen how handball has been incredibly beneficial to players who have excelled at football and hurling and not for the first time, emphasising the ability of our games to complement and assist one another.
"No less than five of the new All-Ireland hurling championship winning team from Clare have a background in handball and likewise there are links to star footballers on the Armagh men’s and ladies’ senior teams as well as many other football and hurling teams."
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