A BATTLING judo duo from Kendal made a long trip to the West Midlands last week, but it proved well worthwhile as they returned to Cumbria with hard earned medals.

Kendal Judo Club members Nye Greasley and Nathan O’Sullivan travelled to Walsall to compete in the Midland Area Open Championships, where despite facing tough competition from all over the country, they rose to the challenge.

Nye in particular had gruelling time, with the Kendal 15-year-old's second fight of the day in the U66 category against Wolverhampton’s Bradley Langford proving an almighty contest.

The score was level after the normal four minutes’ contest time and went into ‘golden score’ time which lasted a further six minutes before Nye lost out on a rather dubious penalty.

However he fought back in the repechage, winning his next two fights with strangles to secure a rematch against Langford for the bronze medal.

And this time there was no mistake for the Kendal youngster as a strangle for a submission in the first minute sealed the victory that earned him that bronze medal.

Nathan, who is 17 and comes from Burneside, had a slightly easier time, surging his way to the final of the U73 kilos weight class thanks to a strangle on George Billyard of Pinewood in the semi-final.

The final against Sammy Awiti Alcaraz from Enfield proved controversial as after a time clock failure with 45 seconds to go, the referee awarded the contest to the Londoner, who was ahead at the time.

After a protest by Nathan, the two players came back on to the mat to fight the final three quarters of a minute but the Kendal player could not get round his opponent’s defence and had to be satisfied with the well-deserved silver medal.