SAMURAI took a clean sweep of the gold medals at the Clive Taylor Kata Championships.

Members of the club showed they were just as comfortable with displaying their technical talents as they were taking on rivals.

That is certainly true of Darcie Hancocks and Leah Grosvenor, currently British number one and two in contest judo, having fought each other in the final of the British Championships last December.

They are also kata partners, and British Champions in two kata categories. The pair won all three sections they had entered.

Hancocks and Grosvenor are now well on the way to eclipsing Kate and Tom Walker and perhaps even Ben Newbury and Benji Connor, the two previously most successful kata pairs in the club’s history.

They were one of four Samurai pairs entered in the junior Nage No Kata, the kata of judo throws.

Samurai ended up with all four medals in the junior section, with Hancocks and Grosvenor ahead of Ellie Arnull and Toni Poulsom in second place, while Lauren Fletcher and Sophie Deeming-Lane took the higher of two bronzes by just a couple of points ahead of Olivia Turner and Sophie Pollitt, who took the other bronze.

In the young juniors section, the Kidderminster club fielded two pairs new to kata and were pleased to see them take gold and silver, with Spencer Benton and Jamie Silwood taking gold ahead of the much younger sisters pairing of Lily and Bonnie Deeming-Lane.

Meanwhile, in the senior section, Sam Bravo and Laura Dangerfield had worked hard on their kata and produced perhaps the single best kata of the day to win the adults gold medal.

In the Gonosen No Kata section, Grosvenor and Hancocks romped to the gold but James and Matt Hemer were unable to complete because of injury.

In the penultimate category, the Ju No Kata, features uu 15 complex moves which show the principles of all aspects of judo and self defence, but performed in an extremely controlled way.

Head coach Andrew Haffner teamed up with Dangerfield and powered to gold.

The pair were also edged into second place by Grosvenor and Hancock by the smallest margin.