DESPITE a nervous start from some members of the Kendal Judo Club squad who crossed the North Sea to Halmstadt in Sweden, the weekend competition proved to be very successful with every member coming back with a trophy.

Aaron Asplin topped the list with a silver in the U21 Men’s Under 81k category. Every contest except the final lasted under a minute, and the Kendal player showed he is no stranger to international judo by using a throw, a strangle and an armlock to get to the gold medal match.

The final against Kevin Nestor from Norrkoping, Sweden went the full distance and Aaron lost by a half point score, but the silver medal was well deserved.

Not content with one competition, Zac Howard fought in the Under 18 U66 kilo category and the Senior Men’s U66k group as well.

Howard’s weekend did not start well, losing to Swedish player William Bjorklund from Boras in his first contest, but then he came back very strongly, beating all his opponents to the semi-final with ippon (full point).

In the semi final he came up against eventual gold medallist Edvin Schonberg and gave the Goteborgs player a run for his money by only losing in the last few seconds.

In his Senior Men’s competition another Goteborgs player, Shokohi Sahand, threw him thus losing his chance of gold.

Ben Dixon, Under 18yrs U73k, also had the misfortune to be drawn early on against the eventual winner Amin Khallouf from Malmo but he showed in winning the bronze medal he is making excellent progress in a new weight group for him.

As the icing on the Kendal Judo Club cake, Tom Finn was awarded a special Player of the Day trophy for showing the most stylish judo.