OLIVIA Turner finished an excellent year by taking bronze at the British Cadet Championships, whilst Laura Dangerfield returned to the Great Britain full senior squad with bronze at the British Senior Championships.

The four day event, held over two weekends at the English Institute Of Sport Arena in Sheffield, is the final major judo event on the annual calendar. On the first weekend, for players aged between 12 and 18, Samurai fielded seven players, with Jake Ashen, Hetty Tinsdale and Sophie Deeming-Lane all fighting well.

Nathan Gallacher was in a new weight category but won several contests in style before finally being eliminated after making a single mistake, whilst Jack Walker finished fifth, just outside the medals.

Although moving up to a new age band for the first time, Leah Grosvenor was widely expected to be in the medals and made her way to the semi-finals out of around twenty players in her category.

Damaged fingers affected her gripping and in the semi-final she was up against a rival from London and was caught on the ground and could not escape. She then fought for the bronze but again her gripping was hampered and in the end had to settle for fifth place.

It was Olivia’s day, she was competing in the over 70 kilos weight category, but as she weighs only around 74 kg this means she gets some much heavier opponents and in the quarter-finals had a girl one-and-a-half times her weight and was caught in a hold following a huge throw. Now she had two tough contests to get the bronze but she battled way and wore both of her opponents down, finally winning both matches.

This marks the end of an incredible year for the Astley Burf girl, she is the first player from either Samurai or Worcestershire to win 30 medals in a year.

In the British Senior Championships, the trials event to qualify for the British senior squad, most of the Olympic team were there, including former Samurai club member Kelly Edwards, who competed in the 2012 Olympics and took gold in the under 52 kilos.

Laura Dangerfield qualified in two weight categories, but opted to compete in the under 70 kilos category. This was split into two groups of five, with the top two from each group progressing to the final group of four.

Despite some surprisingly poor refereeing for this level, Laura finished in second place out of the five to get into the last four. Rio Olympian Natalie Powell and a former Samurai player defeated her in the final pool, which was expected, but teh 27-year-old secuered a bronze medal and a place on the 2017 British senior squad.