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Irish Olympian Jack Woolley announced was hospitalized over the weekend following a violent attack by a gang of 12.
Woolley, 22, who competed in Taekwondo in the Tokyo Olympics, took to Instagram to share his story, as well as photos of his injuries, which included facial lacerations and a slashed lip.
“Last night (Friday 13th August) I went for a meal with my friend,” Woolley wrote. “Followed by a bar for a couple of drinks. Heading back along the River Liffey a gang of roughy 8-12 men and women in their 20s began violently attacking people along the boardwalk. Unfortunately I was victim to these random attacks as I was just walking bye [sic] I was punched in the face by one of these group members. Only one punch and followed by ‘my mistake wrong person’ then they continued to run off down the road attacking more civilians minding their own business.”
“Luckily I was able to phone an ambulance and stay conscious,” he continued. “My friends helped me through out all of this and I’m glad to say they both are well and safe. I am lucky this is all that happened as there were a handful of us hospitalized and two men stabbed. I’m currently waiting in James’s hospital for mouth surgery.”
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“Thank you all again for the support and kind messages,” he concluded. “I hope for a speedy recovery. It’s been a tough couple of months.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CPVrenxh8_r/
Local newspaper The Irish Independent further reports that no arrests have been made, and the investigation into the attack remains ongoing.
Jack Woolley became the first Irishman to compete in taekwondo for his nation in the Tokyo Olympics earlier this year, losing out in the first round of fights to Argentina’s Lucas Guzman. He came out at age 15, and publicly has said he identifies as gay or bisexual. He has also, at times, expressed frustration with the media preoccupation with his sexuality, preferring to focus on his athletics.
Jeepo1
Nowhere in the original source that you copied information from (The Irish Independent) does it indicate this was a homophobic attack. In fact it states this was one of a series in the area.
Please do better reporting.
This is horrible that it happened but don’t sensationalize it.
linedrive
No homophobia is mentioned unless I missed something. I’m assuming queerty’s reporting because he’s a bisexual Olympian.
Jeepo1
well in typical Queerty fashion the article was changed and they failed to mention that the article has been modified as nearly all news/entertainment sites do. fox news even does it and i can’t call fox news without vomiting in my mouth a little bit.
i am glad it was corrected but frustrated the site has these issues
quantum
It’s rather sinister they never post retractions/updates. It often makes the commenters look insane.
john.k
There is no evidence that this was a homophobic attack or that the attackers knew their victim was Jack Wooley. This gang had attacked other people at random as Jack described. There has been a lot of concern in Dublin that since the lockdown gangs of youths have been engaged in serious anti-social and complaints that the Gardai (police) have not been doing enough to combat this.
Erik
Nothing in the article or headline says it was a homophobic attack. Were you home-schooled?
john.k
Erik, the article has changed since I read it this afternoon (Irish time). The final paragraph which implied that it was one of a series of homophobic attacks across Europe has been deleted.
Jeepo1
we must have posted the same thing at the same time.
Chrisk
Wow. Hopefully the Police catch up to these sick and violent thugs soon before they strike out again.
I can’t even imagine the hate and rage it takes to go out and hurt innocent people that did them no harm.
Chrisk
I just realized Donston and the others aren’t here once again accusing me of being a racist for using the thug reference. I wonder why. Lol
Prinny
If you summon him he will come with a 10 mile long word soup
jayceecook
@Prinny LMFAO!!!
quantum
I’ll bite. 🙂
“Thug” is derived from languages of the Indian subcontinent (Hindi and Urdu) meaning “thief”. Annoyingly, it is often used in a racialized manner as a vague slur for African American young men. For a number of years, there was even a gay porn site called “Thug Hunter”. The focus was Black men bottoming for white men in public, and it used horrifical racialized language and still photography that, I sh*t you not, was highly reminiscent of 19th century slave advertisements. They would go so far as to talk about the quality of the men’s teeth. It’s one thing to consensually roleplay racism between consenting adults; it’s entirely different when white men are straight up depicting racism to sell it to closeted white-supremacists in Utah.
Btw, anyone accusing you of being racist is a dumba**
And I may have mentioned him on this site before, but the author and Harvard professor Robert Reid-Pharr is a master at discussing the intersectionality of masculinity, homosexuality, and Blackness. I think the last time I brought him up one of the troll accounts accused me of being him and self-promoting. Lol.
Bengali
For those of you downplaying this because it wasn’t specifically a gay hate crime, do you realize how much force it takes to lacerate someone’s lip? It’s brutal. And this hero suffered. Compassion before labels please.
CallMeMarty1
I don’t think anyone is trying to “downplay” it. They’re just saying that it wasn’t a homophobic attack. Even the person attacked said it was random, so from a reporting standpoint, they shouldn’t connect it to hate crimes. That doesn’t relate to the level of empathy people feel toward Jack as someone who was subject to undeserved violence.
Openminded
That lip looks Sooooo sore. That will require corrective surgery and still probably be a visible reminder every time he looks in the mirror. I feel for this guy. Hopefully it will be a bit easier to accept with it apparently being random and hopefully not homophobic. It’s sad what people will do for fun now.
Hank31
According to his mother, after he recovered from the initial surprise, he “chose not to fight back.” This guy has a black belt in Taekwondo, but he lets his face be used as a punching bag. What is the point of studying and mastering the art of self-defense if you can’t or won’t defend yourself? Worse, by not fighting back, he let the thug go off and continue attacking other people. (I do get that there was a group of thugs, but according to him, only one approached and punched him, so unless more info comes out, there’s no reason to believe that he was surrounded.)
It’s probably a good thing that he didn’t win a medal, as that would have only compounded the humiliation.
Cam
Same old right wing troll lying so it can attack the LGBTQ person.
The article stated that he was punched and then the group ran off. But you always have to attack the LGBTQ victim so you made up a story of him standing by and letting them attack other people so you could attack.
Your trolling is just so sad and obvious it’s almost embarrassing. Do you feel guilty when you ask your manager at the Siberian troll farm for your 15 ruble paycheck at the end of the week?
D_Bro
The article indicates that it was one punch to the face and he didn’t need to defend himself after.
“I was punched in the face by one of these group members. Only one punch and followed by ‘my mistake wrong person’ then they continued to run off”
David Myers
Begone TROLL . . . you have no power here!
Hank31
I know this is shocking to hear, but there are other media accounts of this attack, including one with an interview with his mother, who relayed what Jack told her. Yes, he was surprised. But then the surprise wore off and he made a conscious decision to not fight back or defend himself. As noted above, not fighting back meant letting the thug go after others.
www[dot]independent[dot]ie/irish-news/mother-of-olympian-jack-woolley-says-her-son-chose-not-to-fight-back-after-random-attack-by-group-in-dublin-city-centre-40753658.html
“Mother of Olympian Jack Woolley says her son chose not to fight back after random attack by group in Dublin city centre”
“Ms Woolley said despite her son being an Olympic taekwondo fighter, he choose not to fight back.
“It all happened in a split second, but as soon as he registered what had happened, the initial shock of it happening – he said it flashed through his head: ‘Do I fight back and defend myself, do I not?’,” Mrs Woolley said.”
Vince
He obviously had the ability to fight back being advanced in taekwondo. I mean what’s the point in learning all that shit if you’re just going to allow yourself to be used as a defenseless punching bag? Didn’t he watch any of the karate kid movies? Lol
I honestly don’t get it myself.
OhPlease
There is a big difference between an old fashioned street fight and competitive martial arts. A relative who taught self-defense in the 1980s to cops once had as a student a world-ranked amateur teen fighter who was regularly targeted for beatdowns. He could not fight to save his life, in plain English. Karate or jeet kune do are a little more street-safe but tae kwon do is mostly legwork which is useless when someone is beating your face into the ground!
plazaro1
People aren’t reading the story, NOWHERE does it say it was a Homophobic or hate crime, read before you start wining or simply STFU. Just being beat up randomly is beyond hateful. I hope they are caught and locked up.
linedrive
I wondered if I was missing something. I wondered why everyone was pointing out that it wasn’t homophobia when the article seems clear that it was random. Homophobia or not, it’s terrible.
john.k
When I read the article about 8 hours ago it did have a paragraph linking the attack with other recent attacks, described as homophobic, on gays across Europe. That paragraph has since been deleted, perhaps as a result of the comments by Jeepo1 and me.
Jeepo1
the article was modified and the reference to homophobic attack was removed
jayceecook
One punch did all that damage?! I’ve been attacked more than once and that looks mighty brutal for just a single punch. I mean, I guess it’s possible but that much damage looks like multiple hits. Unless the a-hole who did it got lucky.
Den
I was attacked in a road rage incident a few years back, so yes, if the attacker knows what they are doing and has the element of surprise in their favor one punch can do that much damage or more (lacerations can come from falling down). And it can render you so disoriented that response is difficult. I lost several teeth, had a huge laceration inside my cheek, and my lower facial area was swollen and discolored for days.
D_Bro
I was punched in the face by a drunk in a bar where I worked I had to get my lip sewed up with 4 stitches. Blood everywhere. Had to have tests done to make sure I didn’t have a concussion.
So, yes. One punch can do this much damage.
jayceecook
I guess I got lucky. If one can say that about being assaulted. The times I was attacked I wasn’t ever hit in the mouth or nose just other areas of my face and head.
Head wounds bleed like crazy. Even small ones. So I was expecting to read something of that nature after seeing all the pictures of him from that night. I’m surprised he stayed conscious.
humble charlie
Thank god part of the rampaging gang consisted of women. I’m sure they lessened the damage being done by the rampagers.
Openminded
One would hope, but from the looks of his face, I don’t think these women were “ladies”.
Thad
In this case, “bitches” is appropriate.
And I see some of you are playing that tired old game, “Blame The Victim.” Stop it. Now.
Edz
Why are the Irish and Scottish such random a-holes that they go and attack helpless people in the street? There’s no sense of honor to this at all. I’ve been attacked by these Celts and even have some of their blood as well, but history, not to mention the English, has dealt this kind of unorganized senseless violence cruel blows again and again. It’s just not smart as a tactic or even at the karmic level. Wooley was probably in no condition to fight back with massive amounts of blood flowing from his wound, other people to protect, and a whole mob ready to jump on him. I have a first cousin who was Tae Kwon Do champion of the US as a teen, and there are many specific rules, not unfettered violence with weaponry. Imagine if they had run up against an American crowd with conceal or open carry. Bye-bye. Suddenly these really brave idiots will be put down in a hurry because they’re pretty stupid. But the Germans were Afraid of the Scots in the World Wars because they were mad fighters on the battlefield, not figuring out complex Enigma codes and moving radio towers. It’s like black on black violence, senseless, and it creates a police force that is ready to respond in kind.