27/04/2026
Matsumachi juniors hit top form at the Southampton Samurai Orange belt and under tournament winning 5 medals from their 5 entrants.
Making their competition debuts, twins Evie and Poppy Prior gave their all to win gold and bronze in the u34k and u37k categories respectively.
Not to be outdone, elder sister Ruby, also in her first competition, came very close to adding another gold in the under 55k class eventually settling for a silver after some hard fought contests.
Pressure on then for older brother Logan who, after the success of his three sisters, faced the formidable task of securing the Prior family's fourth podium place of the day. Logan, in the under 50k category, kept a cool head breezing through the early rounds with a display of ippon victories amply demonstrating the progress he has made this year. The final was no different and another convincing ippon win in around 40 seconds secured the gold medal.
Our fifth competitor, Louis Gillespie, in his first competition for well over a year, fought well in a quality over 65 kilo category to take a well earned silver medal.
An excellent day for the club and almost certainly the first time we have ever had four from the same family on the rostrum at the same event.
Coach Paul Sawyer added, "I remember back in the 1970's we had four very talented brothers from Highcliffe, John, Chris, Paul and Mark Knapp (the latter two being juniors with me under Keith Johnson with John and Chris having already passed through the junior class by the time I started) but I reckon there were about 6 or 7 years between John and Mark so the chances of all four going to the same junior event, let alone medalling are pretty slim. If they're reading this perhaps they may know different!"
