PAUL Jones came out of retirement to win a sensational gold medal at the British Masters Championships at the Glades Leisure Centre last weekend on day one of the British Judo Championships for young and old.

The Samurai Judo Club sixth level black belt was one of an excellent haul of seven medals at the British Masters Championships on the Saturday, with two gold medals, a silver and four bronzes.

He has been a member of Samurai for over 30 years, having started judo at the old Kidderminster Judo Club in the early 1970s.

After winning silver at the European Masters Championships in 2005, he retired from contest judo, although he continued to train at the club and was tempted back in to this event, his first competition in nine years.

Jones started strongly and a series of maximum point wins saw him into the final of the over 100kg category against a player from the Budokwai, Europe’s oldest judo club, in London.

Despite giving away some 30kgs and being caught by an early throw, Jones turned his opponent over and held him down to win the title.

Another Samurai making a comeback after a long time was Stuart Lane, who joined the Samurai club nearly 30 years ago as a young boy and last competed fourteen years ago.

He reached the bronze play-off of the lightweight category, where he defeated clubmate Rob Alloway.

Paul Clarke, who had started his judo career under Stuart’s father Rod at Samurai, is another club member who has been around for many years.

After losing to a fighter who eventually went onto win a silver medal, Clarke bounced back to win bronze.

For some time, the Samurai have been developing a parents and older senior players section, and a number of these players have decided to try a few competitions, with encouraging results.

Four of them had a go at the lower grades section of this event, with great results.

James Walker had three excellent maximum point wins against players from Corby, Pinewood and Redbridge before losing to a player from Somerset in the semi-final. But he responded to take bronze.

However, the final great result of the day for the Samurai was in the older men’s lower grades section, where they fielded Mark Flello and Paul Spencer.

Both had four wins on their way to the final against each other, which was just 14 seconds old when Paul launched an excellent throw for maximum points to win the all-Samurai final and leave Mark with silver.

For details call 07761 122977 or visit samurai.org.uk