A 20-year-old man from Carshalton has claimed a bronze medal at the 2017 Junior European Championships in Slovenia.

It’s been a successful year for judo athlete, Jamal Petgrave, after securing gold medals at the International Masters Bremen and the Berlin Junior European Cup.

His latest accolade came on Saturday, September 16, with his bronze medal in the men’s 90kg category in Maribor.

Jamal learned his skills from The Westcroft Judo Club and he now trains at the British Judo Centre of Excellence.

GB Elite Performance Coach, Matt Purssey, said: “I am very proud of how Jamal, and the rest of the team, performed. He came into the event as one of the favourites, after winning Berlin and Bremen and he showed great character in dealing with that pressure. He did this by focusing on his best performance in each exchange of every match.

“The bronze medal match was very frustrating, with his Polish opponent trying to steal the fight through negative tactics, but Jamal dug deep, displayed great resilience & composure & rightly won in golden score.”

After receiving a first round bye, Petgrave defeated Israel’s Italy Golan before losing to France’s 2016 Junior European bronze medallist Aurelien Diessa in the quarter final.”

The Carshalton judoka then fought second seed Vitalii Shepel (UKR) in the repechage final.

Top seed Jakub Ozimek from Poland was Petgrave’s opponent for the bronze medal where the Sutton athlete edged a close match.