Teenager Lucy Day won gold at the junior Northern Ireland Open and also finished fifth in the senior competition.

It continued an excellent run of form which has seen St Albans’ Day, who competes in the Under-57kg category, win silver in both the English Junior Open and English Senior Open. She also secured fifth place in the Spanish European Cup.

The 16-year-old is ranked sixth in the junior British ranking list and 15th in the seniors. Day is also 63rd on the International Judo Federation Cadet world ranking list.

She said: “This has been a fantastic year for me so far. It’s been hard work with lots of training and having to balance studying for my GCSEs, but with all the support I receive, it has been a very successful year.”

After being crowned British Cadet champion at the end of last year, the University of Hertfordshire athlete made it to the third round of Croatia’s European Cup and the quarter finals of the European Cup in Italy.

Nick Brooking, director of Sport at the University of Hertfordshire, said: “Lucy is a fully committed to her training and is a great role model for our programme. It is a privilege to support the next generation of sporting talent who can benefit from the top class skills and expertise we offer here.”

Day has been selected for the Romania European Cup next week and hopes to be picked for the European Championships in July.