Samurai dominate championships

3:00pm Thursday 15th May 2008

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JUDO: Samurai fighters dominated the Midlands Junior Minimon and Senior Kyu Grades Championships and collected a haul of 18 medals.

Bryony Griffiths started the ball rolling for the Kidderminster club with four wins in her five contests, losing just the semi-final before bouncing back well to win the bronze.

Chloe Bustin was unlucky not to also be in the medals in the same weight category, having both the eventual gold and silver medalist in her pool.

Beatrice Howarth added a bronze in the next weight group and then Katie Griffiths and Liane Gillespie-Akar won medals in the group above.

Gillespie Akar had three good wins on her way to the bronze, but Griffiths was in even better form and secured the gold medal with her usual spectacular throws.

In the girls' higher grades, Frankie Marston was in excellent form and three fine wins took her to the final and an eventual silver medal.

In the boys' lightweight category, Ryan Humphries was on sparkling form to win silver.

Five excellent wins in a tough category saw him through to the final before his lack of experience at last led to his only defeat.

Ben Jordan also put in a good performance despite being very inexperienced.

Hayden Clarke was unlucky to finish just outside the medals in fifth place, but George Leverton went two places higher to take a bronze.

In the last of the boys lower grade categories, Andrew Woodall and Jacob Mayall ended up battling it out for a place in the final. Mayall finished with silver and Woodhall with bronze.

In the boys' higher grades, Rory Gulliver finished up just outside the medals in fifth place.

Jack Nelson, Tom Dobbins and Arran Gulliver were all in a very tough category and none of them could end up on the rostrum, with Tim finishing closest in fifth place, but in the boys under-60 kilogram section Sam Woodward secured the higher grade boys a medal when he won gold.

In the senior men's lightest category, James Talbot had four fine wins to take the gold.

There were three bronzes in the heavier weight groups, with Geoff Mills, Mike Welsh and Craig Wilkes all winning contests well.

Samurai dominated the senior ladies' section, with Amy Evans winning silver in the under-57kg section.

Sarah Biles was fighting superbly in the under-63kg group and took the gold with four wins out of four, before Millie Hancocks produced a repeat performance with some particularly fine groundwork to win gold in the under-70kg category.

Katherine Lloyd-Jones swept her opponents away in just seconds to make it a hat-trick of golds for the Samurai ladies and six in total for the club.

Anyone interested in starting judo or finding out more about the club can call Andrew Haffner on 0776 1122977 or visit www.samurai.org.uk