SAMURAI Judo Club’s Jake Ashen gave a career-best performance to win gold at the British Schools Judo Championships at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield.

With around 20 players from all over the country in his category, Jake had plenty of opposition. However, it took him less than ten seconds to win his first contest with a spectacular hip throw for maximum points.

His second contest was his longest but Jake was patient and eventually scored a maximum point throw to take himself into the semi-finals.

He dominated the semi-final from start to finish, gained a high score from a throw early on and then a maximum point throw soon after to put himself into the final.

The final showed the value of good matside coaching. From the start, Jake was in charge, but after an early attack both players went to the ground. As they got up, Jake’s coach shouted just one word – “now” from the coach’s chair and Jake immediately launched into a backwards throw which scored maximum points and gained him his first national title.

The victory made the Ashen family the first in the Samurai club's history to produce three British Champions.

Jake’s younger brother Harry won the British Minors Championships last November and his father won the British Veterans Championships the year before.

On the second day of the event it was the turn of Hetty Tinsdale.

Hetty has one of the best records of any Samurai player at this event, having won medals in three of the last four years including gold in 2015, but in her first contest she had a controversial score given against her and could not equalize. This left her needing three wins to take the bronze, and she won all three by maximum points to earn her medal.

There was also a special needs section at the event, Zac Westwood reached the final in his category after coming from a score down to win the semi-final but lost out to finish second.

The British Schools Championships is also an event which uses the best young judo referees in the country and Samurai had three referees selected for the event.

Lucas Kent, Jack Walker (who competed on the Saturday and refereed on the Sunday) and Olivia Turner all refereed at national level for the first time.

Lucas was also under assessment for his next referee level, National ‘C’ Referee, and passed with flying colours.