A JUDO fighter who trains at Purfleet has picked up one of the sport's most prized medals.

Peter Cousins, 26, won a silver medal in the 2007 Senior World Judo Championships in Rio De Janeiro in Brazil.

Peter fought his way through the knock-out of the under 100kg weight category.

He was up against a total of 48 competitors in this group and first demolished Ehsan Rajabi from Iran with a yuko (5 point throw).

Next in the local man's sights was Amel Mekic from Boznia & Herzegovina, beating him by a maximum 10 points.

Next on the throwing list was Egidijus Zilinskas from Lithuania in the quarter final and then a semi-final duel against the tough Oreydi Despaigne from Cuba.

Against the gritty Cuban Peter produced a beautiful Ippon Seio-nage throw, which was performed with such speed it earned him not only 10 points and a win but a place in the world finals.

In the final he came up against Luciano Correa from Braziland the pair battled for nearly all the permmitted five minutes before Peter was caught on the counter-attack and the Brazilian scored 10 points.

Winning a medal at the Senior World Championships has given Peter automatic qualification to compete in the Olympic games in Bejing next year.

It's something Peter has wanted all his life - he only narrowly missed out on qualification for Athens three years ago by 1 point on a European ranking points system.

Peter - who has bneen a member of the Purfleet -based JSC Judo club since he was eight - is now looking for a sponsor.

He has won numerous amounts of International and National medals over the past few years at Junior level (under 20 years) and then in 2006 he won his first Senior International medal - Bronze at the Senior European Championships.

* The JSC Judo Club meets at the Hugh Delargy Hall, North Road in Purfleet. Contact: John Cottis 07773-376760 (Coach) or Sharon Cottis on 07970-935949 (Club Secretary).

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