FRESH from defeating the best of Britain with their three gold medals at the North-West Junior Open, Samurai Judo Club's terrific trio crossed the channel for further success.

Tom Walker, Kate Walker and Kelly Edwards each returned with a medal from the Rouen International in France.

Judo is a lot more popular in France than Britain with over a million judo players in the country, and the event attracted the top 500 players from the northern half of the country plus squads from Holland and Italy.

Edwards never looked like losing her incredible unbeaten record, which in her own weight category now stands at 10 months.

She made light work of seeing off a host of rivals including a whitewash of the French favourite and a 40 second destruction of her final opponents.

Tom started well with a spectacular win in his first contest and although the rules differed slightly from back home he performed well to clinch bronze.

His sister Kate went one better by securing silver after storming through to the final only to be let down at the last by an uncharacteristically weak attack.

Wyre Forest players were among the medals at Samurai's own Boys Minimon competition, which attracted a massive entry from over twenty different clubs.

Tom Wilkes clinched silver in the under-30 kilos category with Michael Circus also celebrating second place in the under-42 kilos category.

Novice Simon Cunningham capped a superb tournament by taking bronze in the under-60 kilos, losing in the semi-final to Bewdley's David Sullivan who secured silver.

David Hadley from Samurai did well to win several contests in the over 60 kilos category and take the bronze, while rapidly improving Bewdley player, Russell Nutland, excelled with maximum points and the gold medal.

For details Samurai phone 07971 869234 or visit www.samurai.org.uk