A YEAR after their triumph at the European Special Needs Judo Kata Championships, Luke Mole and Olivia Turner were successful again, this time winning silver in the groundwork kata as well as fourth place in the kata of throws.

Olivia was also crowned European SN champion in the fighting section for the third consecutive year, and for the second year running took gold in both the junior and senior sections.

Luke took a bronze in the fighting section to round off a very successful weekend.

The event was in Amsterdam and featured players from all over Europe.

Last year, Olivia and Luke made history by being the first British junior pair to compete in a European Kata Championships, and went one better by taking gold out of the ten pairs entered.

This was in the kata of throws, where this year they took bronze for fourth place.

However, they broke new ground this year by also doing the kata of groundwork, and also swapped roles this time, with Luke being the player to apply the groundhold, strangle and armlock techniques whilst Olivia demonstrated the attempted evasions.

Kata is the demonstration side of judo, where pure technique is assessed.

They were awarded the silver, with only the tiniest of margins separating them from the gold medal pair.

On the fighting side, Olivia continues to look unstoppable at European SN level. Having recently gained her black belt in mainstream judo, she was up against mainly Dutch black belts this year, but none of them could stop her, and she won all of her contests by maximum points.

Luke, meanwhile, has improved considerably and, after reaching the semi-final and then losing, he won his last contest against a Belgian player to take the bronze.