TEENAGER Rae Anderson led the way as youngsters from the Borders shone in the Scottish Judo Championships.

The Walkerburn player picked up Gold in the junior category and silver in her age band as Peebles members of the Outreach Judo and Sportif Judo achieved great success at Ravenscraig.

Rae trains extremely hard with the national development squad, Edinburgh Judo Club and Outreach Judo Academy and this level of commitment is now showing in her results. Other notable wins came from Molly Saxon (gold), Jess College (silver) and Dylan Greens (silver). These players train under Peter Gardiner and Sportif Judo at Priorsford Primary School.

Max Bone from Outreach Judo took a bronze in an extremely hard fought group of junior players and Thomas Nicoll, also from Outreach Judo, showed great promise for the future by taking silver in his age band.

He won five fights and was only narrowly beaten in the final. Judo is thriving throughout the Borders, and there are now established clubs in Peebles, Newlands, Selkirk, Galashiels, Kelso, East March, and Duns. Clubs hold regular training sessions together and organise friendly mini-competitions. Judo is a great way to meet and make new friends, get fit and learn new skills. Not everyone competes, in fact most players don’t, but what they all do is love judo.

For more information contact Colin Aitken – info@outreachjudo.org for Peebles/Newlands/Selkirk/Biggar; Preeti Gardiner -info@sportifjudo.com for Peebles Priorsford/Kelso; James Hunt – info@focusjudo.org for Galashiels or the national governing body www.judoscotland.com.