THE Warwick University Open is always a good event for the Samurai Judo Club, and this year proved to be particularly good as they clocked up four gold medals in the individual sections as well as silver in the men’s teams.

With an eye to the team event later in the day, Samurai fielded Martin Allen and Spencer Benton in the lightest weight category of the men’s low grade individuals, despite both players being just 14-years-old and up against adult men. However, both exceeded all expectations as they won three contests each to reach the final against each other. Spencer finished with gold and Martin with silver.

Martin’s father Mark finishing fifth two weight categories above his son, whilst three good wins saw Ryan Killworth take a bronze in the category above that.

The women’s section was a high grades individual competition. Leah Grosvenor, also just 14, was expected to do well, but she too exceeded all expectation.

She fought a total of seven contests, most of them against black belts including two second level black belts, and nobody below her own brown belt grade, but she won the lot, not only winning each contest by maximum points and without conceding a single score or penalty.

This earned her gold in both her own weight category and the middleweight open, despite giving quite a bit of weight away in the open.

Laura Dangerfield and fifteen year-old Olivia Turner, both fought two weight categories above Leah and again both did well, eventually meeting in the final.

Laura finished in the gold position and Olivia with silver. Both also entered the heavyweight open category, where they finished with bronze.

There were also two five-man team events for the men, one for black belt grades and one for intermediates.

Samurai fielded a black belt team but were a player short after Dan Matei pulled out with a hamstring injury. Nevertheless, the four remaining players, Joe Perry, Stuart Lane, Sam Woodward and Martin Brown, did well to beat hosts Warwick University and only narrowly lose to Oxford University and their great rivals Coventry.

This saw them finish in fifth position, just outside the medals.

Beating Warwick was made more difficult after Samurai loaned Nathan Gallacher, who had been attending as a referee, to the Warwick team and he beat Joe Perry.

The intermediate grade men’s team had Spencer Benton and Martin Allen sharing the lightweight place, then 15-year-old Lucas Kent, Ryan Killworth and veterans Rob Starbuck and Nick Ashen.

They defeated Warwick's A Team 3-2, then Sheffield, also 3-2, then Warwick B 4-1 and finally Southampton 3-2, with a tremendous throw from Rob Starbuck winning that last match, to put themselves into the final against Bangor University. This proved a bridge too far as Bangor edged past them 3-2, but a silver medal was an excellent result for the team.

Another Samurai medal winner was Niya-Louise White in the last of the girls’ categories at the club's Mini-Me event.