THERE was a double triumph for Samurai at the British Schools Special Needs (SN) Championships when their two entrants, Olivia Turner and Luke Mole, both took gold.

The competition, held at Samurai’s Kidderminster home, drew entries from all over the UK, including Scotland and Wales.

Turner, who is the current British and European SN champion, was the favourite to win but did so in style, clinching all three of her contests by maximum points, twice throwing her opponents for high scores and then finishing with some excellent groundwork.

She sealed the third success with a maximum-point score throw against a stronger Bristol girl.

Mole is just coming to the end of his first year in judo, and what a year it has been.

He came on a school judo course run by the Samurai and then started training.

He has won several medals in competitions and then partnered Turner at the European SN Kata Championships in Amsterdam, where they took first place and became the first British junior pair ever to win a kata gold at European level.

Meanwhile, there were a series of Samurai players helping the Midlands teams at the British National Team Championships, including an unbeaten performance from Nathan Gallacher which helped the boys’ cadets to silver.

After losing to the South in their first-round match, they qualified for the knockout before defeating London and then Scotland in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively.

Gallacher was first on to fight in the final and won his contest with a superb throw, which also earned him his first 10 points towards his black belt. But the teams could not quite continue that momentum as they lost 4-3.

In the younger pre-cadet boys team, Samurai’s Callum Spencer, Martin Allen and Jack Walker competed but the team could not get through the pool.

The girls cadet team included Sophie Deeming-Lane who, fought well at a higher level.