SAMURAI Judo Club’s Leah Grosvenor took a bronze for the second year at The Flanders Cup in Belgium.

Despite now being unbeaten in Britain for 14 months and being the current holder of the British, Scottish Open, Welsh Open, Midlands Open, North-West Open and Heart Of England titles, she has recently moved up a weight category to under 57 kilos. There were 23 players in her category, none of them easy matches.

Leah started solidly with an excellent win by a maximum point throw in her opening match against a Belgian player and was soon qualifying from the pool.

Next up was a Spanish player who Leah beat comfortably with first a throw and then a hold for maximum points. This put her into the quarter-finals against a very tough Dutch player.

She dominated the grips and the attacks, and although unable to score won by a penalty against her opponent for being passive, which was caused entirely by Leah’s pressure and gripping.

Now she had an even tougher Dutch girl in the semi-final – the Dutch are perhaps the strongest judo country in Europe in terms of strength in depth at this age range.

This player had been beating her opponents with a superb foot sweep which Leah was able to nullify, but Leah still got caught with a good throw for a low score and was unable to equalise.

Whilst this girl went on to win the gold, Leah now faced one last contest to win the bronze.

She was up against the winner of the repechage section, the best of four strong players, and Leah was very tired from her semi-final, but she found reserves of energy from somewhere and again dominated, gaining a low score and hanging onto it to win the bronze.

This was a very good result for Leah, certainly a tougher contest than any of the tournaments she has been to and won easily in Britain this year.

With nearly all of the top British players away at Flanders, several other Samurai players were making their mark at the Welsh Open in Newport.

Both Nathan Gallacher and Matt Hemer used the event to try their luck in a higher weight group and with four wins between them they finished in seventh and fifth place respectively.

Sophie Deeming-Lane is beginning to make her mark at this level, and she won two contests to take the bronze.

Olivia Turner was delighted to beat her toughest British rival for the first time ever, and should have finished with the silver medal, but having cricked her neck in losing to the gold medalist, she was withdrawn from her last contest on medical advice and therefore could not get her medal.

On the second day of the Welsh Open there was a gold in the masters section for Rob Alloway, despite not being fully well or fit.

Laura Dangerfield, who is also not fully fit at present, finished fifth and Sam Woodward also did well in the senior men.

Sophie Deeming-Lane entered the senior women’s section and finished seventh.