FORMER Ilkley Grammar School pupil Laura Beardsmore has spearheaded a British assault on the Shodokan Aikido Federation (SAF) World Championships on Australia's Gold Coast.

The British Aikido Association (BAA) team manager, who now lives in Horsforth, won three gold medals in the two-day event to take her global medal tally to an astonishing eight as Britain had their most successful event in years.

Two of the 27-year-old Leeds University graduate's triumphs came in Randori (fighting), with the women's individual and women's team, while the mixed team gold came in Kongo Dan Taisan.

Beardsmore's women's team victory was very much a West Yorkshire affair as Leeds' Natuley Smalle, originally from Uxbridge, and Bradford's Sarah Fletcher were her colleagues, while Beardsmore and Fletcher were part of the Kongo Dan Taisan winners.

Fletcher, who has coached at Jimmy's Gym in Calverley, wasn't the only gold medallist from Bradford, however, as Jermaine Liburd, a graduate of Huddersfield University who now lives in Perth, Australia, won the men's individual Randori.

It was a triumph for perseverance as he had finished second in 2011 and third in 2013, and Britain made their first ever clean sweep in Randori.

Smalle, a graduate of Hull University, was runner-up to Beardsmore in the women's individual, and was also second in the Dan Grade Junanahon.

Meanwhile, David Fielding MBE, who is originally from Sheffield, became Britain's oldest global aikido gold-medal winner at the age of 48, which also helped him break the BAA individual all-time record for medals.

Of Britain's international debutants Charlotte Jenner, 19, from Leeds, was a quarter-finalist, and Daniel White, 21 from Skipton, lost in the fourth round to a Japanese national champion.

Information for people looking for an aikido club can be found at www.aikido-baa.org.uk.