DRAKE Judo Club were out in force on Sunday when 25 of their members made the trip to Newquay to compete in the Kazoku Trophy, a competition for judo players aged from 8 to 40.

The tournament had almost 100 entries and attracted players from all over the South West.

All of the 25 players earned medals, which included 13 golds, seven silver and five bronze. The Kazoku trophy was also presented to club captain Jack Murphy 12 and vice-captain Lucy Knape 10 as Drake were the most successful club on the day.

There was more good news for the club as five Drake players were selected to compete at the British National Championships — all of whom came away with a gold medal in their respective categories.

The players were supported on the day by black belt coaches Ros Hopkins, Ross Taylor and Charles Knape.

Ross, who is the club chairman, said: ’It’s fantastic to be able to bring this amount of players away to a competition, our performance on the day was tremendous and we had a number of our younger players making their debut in a competitive environment.’

Second dan black belt head coach Mike Nugent was delighted that Alanna Hopkins took her ninth gold medal of the year and Jake Brown won his first contest in two seconds. He was also proud that debutants did so well and were supported by their more experienced club mates.’

 Club captain Jack Murphy, aged 12, who took gold on the day, said: ‘Today 25 of my fellow clubmates have medalled from eight year-old Guilia Baiz who weighs only three and a half stone, all the way up to Derek  who is 6ft 3ins and 19 stone with all ages and weights in between.’

 The medal haul had added to the club’s tally, as 100 medals have been won at competition this year.

Ross Taylor said that the club had big plans moving forward: ‘We are currently working extremely hard to develop the club and have an offering from infant all the way through to potential Olympic athlete, we are in discussions with a number of local institutions to be able to offer our players and athletes access to some of the finest facilities in the UK.’