Silver and bronze medals for GB’s young judoka at the European Junior Cup at Paks in Hungary prove British Judo’s young Olympic hopefuls are on the right track towards 2016 and beyond.

Max Stewart (-81kg) and Hayley Willis (-48kg) both seized silver while Bekky Livesey (-57kg) and Jodie Myers (+78kg) won bronze.

Max, fighting in the -81kg category scored four ippons in a row making it to the final where he was denied the gold after losing his last bout against Ukrainian Davyd Kharebava for ippon.

He won his first round against Austrian Johann Schmid, and then went on to beat Nick Kellij of the Netherlands, Italian Daniele Sciabola and Rico Harder of the Netherlands.

Hayley Willis, fighting in the -48kg weight category, scored two ippons on her way to the final – her first against Hungarian Bettina Keller on Keller’s home ground and again in the second round against Moldova’s Cristina Budescu. Hayley reached the semi-final where she beat Romania’s Alexandra Pop by a yuko, but was then was beaten by ippon by Ukranian Olga Smolska.

The first bronze was claimed by Bekky, who won her first bout by two waza-aris and a yuko against Hungarian Vivien Hun Koteles and her second by ippon against Dane Ida Hagelskjaer. She then lost to Russian Anastasiia Konkina who scored a yuko and an ippon, meaning Bekky dropped into the repechage system. Regaining her confidence by winning with ippon against Romanian Alexandra Florian she then emulated this success with another ippon against Italian Maria Centracchio gaining her place in the bronze medal contest. Facing Italian Greta Poser, she took victory with a waza-ari and a yuko.

Jodie Myers dropped into the repechage early after losing her first fight against Russian Anastasia Trapeznikova who won by a waza-ari. Jodie fought back in against Kubra Bayram of Turkey, this time winning by a waza-ari before beating Vera Davydenko with a single yuko to claim the second bronze.

Meanwhile, Katie-Jemima Yeats-Brown (-63kg) and Natasha Maslen (-70kg) both placed fifth, while Connor Ireland (-66kg) finished a solid seventh place.

Words by Donna Richardson