Martina McMahon's standout 2024 season

2024 has been a stellar year for Croagh-Kilfinny native Martina McMahon in the world of Handball. After coming back from serious back surgery McMahon retained her singles ‘Small Ball’ one wall and the ‘Big Ball’ World Championship titles on home soil at the University of Limerick. Martina also claimed the doubles World Championship 40x20 crown alongside Aoife McMahon in Croke Park to finish her year on a high.

Speaking about the her highlights from the past year of competitions Martina stated: “Retaining my 2018 title in front of a home crowd in UL was definitely one of the highs and then again winning the doubles at the 40x20 World Championships in Dublin with Aoife was a huge achievement, as we were totally wrote off going into the final.”

McMahon has been playing handball since the age of eight, but in the last few years she has taken her training to another level as the sport tries to break through onto the Olympic stage for 2028.

Winning the titles on home soil was an ‘amazing experience’ for the 29-year-old and McMahon was delighted with the support she enjoyed throughout her semi-finals and finals in UL.

“It was lovely to go back to UL where I studied and then obviously the fact the championships were in Limerick I was able to gather up a bit of support and it was nice to have them there watching me,” McMahon told Leader Sport.

“A lot of the handball tournaments rotate and they could be dotted anywhere in the world, so usually I only have my mum with me at those competitions, but it was lovely to have my siblings and members of the Broadford club there as well to cheer me on and it definitely was an advantage for me.”

Due to Covid the World Championships in the sport have not taken place until 2024 at the University of Limerick, where McMahon studied Biomedical Engineering and is now working full-time with a Dublin Company as a senior QA specialist, alongside trying to juggle training for the recent World Championships.

McMahon admits that she would ‘love to get a sponsor’ so that she could dedicate herself to the sport for the next year or two.

“I don't even know if such a thing exists, but a sponsor would mean I could fully focus on handball for a while. I suppose with my back injury I am on a bit of a ticking time bomb, but I am working full-time at the moment and handball unfortunately isn't feasible to do all the time for me at the moment.”

After winning two prestigious titles at the World Championships in Limerick the Limerick woman hopes it will encourage younger athletes to take up the sport in their local clubs.

She spoke about her home handball club, Broadford, in which she grew up playing the sport in. “Handball naturally does have smaller numbers than the traditional sports and Covid did kill a lot of numbers that we had growing in the club at the time, but now we are getting a lot of youngsters back again.

“Evan and Pat Murphy are the real driving force in getting the younger generation playing and hopefully my success will drum up a bit of excitement around the sport and we will get a few more down, anything I can do to help keep the game alive is what I am aiming to do.”

McMahon stated what her 2025 aspirations were saying: “We are straight back into training in the middle of January with a competition at the end of the month and then after that it will be all focused on trying to win the 40x20 single World Championship title that I missed out on this year.

“The dream would be to win the 40x20 singles and the 60x30 singles All-Ireland Championships and anything after that would be a bonus and then hopefully get a bit of travel around that as well.”

After coming back after a serious surgery Martina has overcome something most people would never even be able to do. The Croagh-Kilffiny native is a stand-out player in the world of handball and is a huge role model for the players across the country, who will hopefully be inspired to start the sport now as well.