Magnificent seven all win Tora medals

TORQUAY Judokwai members showed plenty of fighting spirit when they travelled to the Tora Judokai tournament in Bristol.

All seven of the Torquay fighters returned with medals, but once again it was the club's female fighters who took top honours.

Toni Malone (9-25kg) is the club's smallest fighter, but that didn't stop her winning all four of her bouts to take her gold medal.

She won all four of her fights with ippon throws.

Lucy Pannell (11-32kg) was also in confident form. She won all three of her bouts to win the gold medal without really being tested.

Pannell defeated team-mate Stacey Malone in the final, who had to settle for a silver medal in her first competition.

Between the two female gold medallists, they have won 10 championship medals this season, and have only failed to get themselves on the medal podium once.

Damon Smith (13-73kg) led the way for the boys in his first competitive appearance.

Not content with winning the gold medal in his weight class, Smith also took the silver medal in the open weight division.

Taking on boys much bigger than himself, he only lost the final by five points.

Making his return to competition for the first time since February, Jacob Ward (11-30kg) came back strongly from a first-round defeat to take a bronze medal.

Jake Slay (10-34kg) also achieved a bronze medal after his semi-final went into golden score time.

In his debut event, Jude Davies (8-30kg) came through to achieve bronze.

Club coach Simon Ward was understandably delighted with his team's efforts.

"Once again our younger fighters dominated this level of competition. All of the fighters were brilliant, producing some quite outstanding throwing techniques.

"I'm really proud of them, especially the new fighters to the team.

"It's such a different environment to club fighting, but to come away from your first event with some victories and even a medal, we can't ask for anything better than that."

A student at Paul Drury's Black Belt Academy in Dawlish has received a coveted black belt in kick-boxing.

Kyle Mitchell, accomplished the rank after a testing which consisted of fitness tests, line work, pad work, sparring, and written theory tests.

Master Drury said: "Kyle is a keen and very dedicated student and we are very proud to have him."

(thisissouthdevon.co.uk)