OLIVIA Turner has become the latest member of the Samurai Judo Club to gain her second level black belt.

Olivia, aged 18, has been one of the club’s greatest success stories of recent years. She joined the club at the age of 12 and from the beginning did not let the fact that she is autistic hold her back. She worked hard on her contest judo, gaining her first medals in events at the club and then going on to attend Special Needs events, which she dominated, winning gold at first the British Schools SN Championships and then the British SN Championships several times. Then she went into Europe to compete at the European SN Championships and won gold there as well, first in 2015 in the juniors and then for the next three years taking both the junior and senior European SN titles.

In 2016, already taking an interest in kata (the formal display section of judo, where contests are adjudicated by threw quality of technique in pre-arranged patterns), she began seriously training in the kata of throws (Nage No Kata) with her SN partner Luke Mole, and as a pair they entered the kata section of the European SN Championships and took an outstanding gold medal. Olivia has since taken a further three medals at European SN Kata events.

Back on the contest side of judo, Olivia was making serious progress in mainstream judo competition, rising to national level. Eventually she gained bronze at the British National Championships in 2016 and then went a stage further in 2017 and took silver, only narrowly losing the final on a single penalty. She gained her black belt in March 2017 and just two years later has now been promoted to second level after defeating ten first level black belts by maximum points in competitions and passing a strenuous technical evaluation.

Olivia is a qualified coach, referee and table official and also recently became only the sixth member of the club ever to be awarded their prestigious Gold Star Award.

For details about starting judo, telephone 0776 1122977 or visit the Samurai website on samurai.org.uk or their Facebook page.