ANOTHER awesome performance from Samurai Judo Club's Kate Walker saw her take a silver medal at the Kent International Open Judo Champion-ships at Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.

The event is considered one of the three toughest in the domestic calendar, along with the Welsh Open and the Heart Of England, and more than 1,000 players took part including a physically strong Dutch contingent.

Walker, who has just turned 14 and lives in Far Forest, started in style with a series of victories, making it look easy despite her opponents being amongst the best players in Great Britain.

However, things got tough in the semi-final when she clashed with the current British number one.

Walker knew that this girl had one major devastating technique and she and her coach Andrew Haffner worked carefully on tactics to nullify this throw and enable her to get in her own techniques.

This worked well, but it was a superb piece of opportunism which gave Walker the victory - she saw a momentary opening and took it at lightning speed to gain the only score of the match.

In the final, she was up against a strong Dutch girl, but dominated the early stages.

However, she took a knock half way through the contest and although she was able to continue, this threw her off her stride and the Dutch girl gained a score almost immediately.

This left Walker needing to chase the contest and at the end she had to settle for silver.

The Samurai took another silver in the lower grade section for the enthusiastic Katherine Lloyd-Jones.

Greg Oertel was unlucky, finishing fifth after some excellent wins, and there were also a series of fine wins for Ryan Pitcock, Matthew Lowe, Callum Lowe, Emily Watson and Edward Connor.

In the seniors on Sunday there was a tremendous effort from Rob Dalloway in the tough men's black belts, while in the ladies' black belts Louise Dunne, although short of recent match practice, finished fifth.

Paul Clarke put up a fine performance against some of Britain's top young senior men.