Updated at 23.16

IRELAND IS NOT a country that is particularly renowned for producing gold-medal-winning martial artists, however Limerick’s Adrian Kearns is one of the few exceptions that prove the rule.

Kearns recently competed in five categories at the Wushu Championships in China — an event widely regarded as the Olympic Games of Kung Fu. He was one of roughly 11,000 competitors from 55 countries, and yet subsequently arrived back in Cork airport having claimed a phenomenal four gold medals and one silver — an unprecedented achievement for an Irish martial artist.

He was participating as part of the European Hong Ying team, with four others of different nationalities, in an event that encompassed a series of different styles of martial arts, including animal Kung Fu and t’ai chi.

Keans ultimately triumphed in double broadsword, fan, stick and imitation boxing form categories, as well as picking up a silver in the Choy Li Fut, Wing Chun and Baihe group event.

With thousands of athletes competing, the occasion sounds like a logistical nightmare, but Kearns explains that it was meticulously planned from the beginning.

“It was very well organised,” he tells TheScore.ie. “They had buses going to and from the competition. We had a team manager, who brought us to the competition, made sure our registration was good and everything. They had people looking after where you go and they were very strict on where you had to be at a certain time to organise the event itself.”

Kearns, who also runs a Kung Fu school in Limerick, was part of a team only in the loosest sense, as he was primarily competing as an individual — he even faced a teammate at one point. Yet such intense competition never threatened to break a solid bond that had been formed between these athletes through years of competing together.

“The five of us got on really well — we worked and trained hard together,” he says. “We all know each other very well so it was a nice balance of the team.

“I studied Kung Fu in Holland under my teacher, Sifu Mark Horton. I trained three years with the guys and know them all very well. I’m teaching in Limerick now, but I still go back to Holland and teach two or three times a year for different training camps and visit the school.”

Kearns’ achievement was all the more remarkable given that it was his first time participating in the competition. His Dutch teammates, by contrast, had already participated in the event, which takes place every two years in Hong Kong, on three different occasions.

The success he enjoyed at this year’s Wushu Championships was the culmination of a long, arduous journey for Kearns, who’s been excelling at martial arts since he was eight-years-old, developing a passion for it through “the movies, computer games, things like that,” which prompted him to join his local karate school.

His career took off when he earned a black belt in karate in 1995. From there, he moved to Holland to undertake more advanced training in 1997, “falling in love with” the Choy Li Fut style of Kung Fu in the process and then becoming a personal student of Horton in 1999.

“I’d enter karate tournaments in Limerick,” he recalls. “I used to win forms when I was a young lad. Then I changed to full-contact Chinese kickboxing, fighting around Europe for a few years, before I started to compete again in Kung Fu sets. The last big competition I competed in I only took up last year. Then I got selected for the worlds.”

Horton — one of the highest-level Kung Fu teachers outside of China — informed Kearns that he would be competing at the prestigious Wushu Championships back in October. Consequently, he underwent a strict training regime that invariably involved practicing two or three times a day.

“The five categories I was in were all I practised for the five months. In our system, we have about 500 forms, so we have a lot to practise with the tai chi, kickboxing as well, so it’s a very big system. We do a lot of traditional stuff as well, like Chinese lion dancing and Chinese dragon dancing. A lot of that went on the short finger while I was preparing for the tournament. I wanted to make sure that the five forms I was doing were drilled into my head so when I went onto the mat, I could concentrate on things like my stances, my delivery, my timing, my dynamic of performance.”

The Limerick native also worked extensively on the mental side of his preparation, explaining: “I worked on concentration, because there were a lot of spectators there, a lot of people around the mat. So even though I was focused and ready when I went on to the mat, the nerves did take a little bit out of me. I had to block everything out and concentrate on my form. Psychology kind of came into play then.”

Kearns’ fantastic performances at the event — all of which took place over just one day — meant that he subsequently received a hero’s welcome home.

“I had a great reception. I was met at the airport by family and friends. I’ve done some radio interviews in Limerick since, and there were some articles online about it and in the local newspaper.

“A lot of people don’t exactly understand what Kung Fu is down here. Another objective of mine is to make people aware of who we are and what we do, so that they understand Kung Fu more. So we need to build our style of Kung Fu and our association.”

Kearns has certainly lived up to his promise so far, helping to establish the first Choy Li Fut Kung Fu school in Limerick.

“It’s very good for myself and the school that we’re growing. We’re only two years open as a school, so maybe in the future, we can take schools from Ireland to these events. We always have a lot planned. We hope to compete in another tournament in Amsterdam at the end of May. It’s called the Guo Shu Cup and it’s a high-profile event. It attracts people from around Europe. I competed in it last year as well, so I’ll hopefully be competing in it this year too.”

And while the sport is becoming more prominent in Ireland, most athletes would currently be a long way off Kearns’ high standard.

“There’s nobody in this part of the country that would do what we do and be on the level that I’m on. We’ve been in contact with a few schools in Dublin. I don’t know if they compete at this kind of level. But we’re trying to build bridges with all the Kung Fu schools around Ireland, so we have national tournaments as well and also local tournaments, which would be good for upcoming Kung Fu people so that they can eventually go and compete [at more advanced tournaments]. Being a specialised martial artist, it’d be hard for us to go and compete nationally, because most of them would be karate-based tournaments, and it’s very difficult for us to compete in those, because we’re a very different style.”

And he is targeting a number of events in the near future, which he hopes to compete in alongside other athletes from his Limerick-based school, amid what is a busy schedule in the months ahead.

“The next big tournament would be San Francisco. I’m going to work towards that and I’ll hopefully do the Guo Shu Cup in Amsterdam at the end of May, which is actually a team event, with teams of three, and it goes on the points of each individual. Our school is hoping to go with two teams and I was asked to go and compete as well.

“It’d be similar to Hong Kong — not as big, but still a very important tournament in the calendar. They’d be the two goals I’d be looking at and there’s lots going on in Limerick in our school too, trying to build it. We have some demonstrations coming in April and there are other events coming up as well, so we’re planning for those too.”

First published at 10.00