FIFTEEN-year-old Bethany Hoggarth of Kendal Judo Club is back from competing with the British squad in the European Youth Olympic Days in Murcia, Spain.

Mixing with fighters from 52 countries, Bethany gained valuable experience and fought hard with a valiant effort in defeat against the under-70 kilo national champion from Belarus.

Among her supporters were a group of Kendal's juniors who had travelled 2,200 miles overland in the club's minibus with Kendal's chief coach Mike Liptrot.

Kendal junior Michelle Raven, 17, is on course for her black belt after being awarded the top 18th mon brown belt at a grading in St Helens.

Michelle put paid to her first two opponents with a backwards leg pick-up thrown and then dominated the groundwork for two Ippon wins.

She made short work of three more opponents with Ippon wins again to collect 30 points towards her Dan grade.

Relentless attacking by 16-year-old Anthony Parkinson put a black belt in his sights with three Ippon wins for the top brown belt grade.

Calum Hartley used the backwards leg pick-up throw to achive two Ippon successes to gain his blue belt and 13th mon.

n Six players from the Windermere Phoenix club improved grades at St Helens,

Two good wins took Simon Birkett to top blue 15th Mon and he still has a further year to gain one more grade to become the club's first junior brown belt.

A solid performance by Michael Sutton enabled him to move up a grade to middle green, 11th mon.

Richard Himlin, Melvin Thompson, David Taylor and Ryan Taylor all moved up from top yellow, 6th mon, to middle orange, 8th mon.

The Taylor brothers were undefeated, while Thompson had the best throw for a spectacular victory in his first match.