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ST HELENS' Lucy Renshall capped off a great year with bronze at the 2015 World Junior Judo Championships in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.

Renshall, who trains at the British Judo Centre of Excellence in Walsall, had won the Junior European Championships title in Austria in September and was going in as top seed in the -63kg category.

After receiving a bye in the first round the Merseyside athlete produced a big throw in her opening match with Ching Hsiao Lin (TPE) to book a spot in the quarter-finals where she faced Tunisia's Meriem Bjaoui. The contest went into golden score as neither judoka could get more than a shido and Renshall’s superior offence saw her take the contest as Bjaoui conceded another shido.

Renshall faced Diana Dzhigaros (RUS) in the semi-final and after controlling the majority of the contest, the British judoka got held down with a minute to go and went into the bronze medal contest.

This set-up a rematch with Elisavet Teltsidou (GRE), who Renshall had beaten for European gold earlier this year. Yet again it proved a tight affair with the Greek competitor going ahead by yuko before Renshall produced a waza-ari to take the lead and held off a late surge to take bronze.

While she was disappointed to miss out on a place in the final she was happy to finish her last year at Junior level with a World medal:

"It feels so good! I'm devastated about my semi-final as I really think I was in control of the fight and I thought I could win it but I just got caught in newaza but I'll happily settle for the bronze. I'm really made up!"

Junior Lead Coach Jamie Johnson was pleased with how Renshall came back from her semi-final defeat:

"Lucy fought very well. In the semi-finals Lucy was very confident and was winning but then just fell into a bad position getting held for ippon. The bronze was a rematch of the European final and Lucy went down a yuko but showed great character and pulled another big o-uchi out to score waza-ari and win bronze."

Fellow St Helens judoka Bekky Livesey (-57kg) got off to a good start defeating Jaeren Lee (KOR) before being caught in an arm lock early in her third round contest with Aigerim Abilkadirova (KAZ) and was forced to tap out.

Livesey, like Renshall, is a final year Junior and will move into Senior level for 2016.