THERE was double judo gold medal success for the Livesey family at the weekend’s 2015 European Cup at Wembley with both Owen and Amy taking top spot on the podium.

It was a fine achievement for the brother and sister from Haresfinch, who have continued their excellent progress in the sport this year.

First of all Amy Livesey battled to the final where she took on a familiar opponent in Eccleston’s former Pride of St Helens nominee Lucy Renshall in the -63kg category.

Both players learned their trade at the SKK club at Earlestown and are currently based at the Centre of Excellence in Walsall, so a tight final was always going to be likely.

In the end Livesey won it three penalties to one to take the crown.

That success continues her good form, with the 21-year-old already banking a couple of World Cup medals this year.

On Sunday it was the turn of older brother Owen to take centre stage – and he too locked horns with some familiar foe in the final of the -81kg category.

It was the fourth time in six months that 23-year-old former Saints junior has tackled Tom Reed in a final.

The Commonwealth champion, who has his sights fixed firmly on a place on the plane to next year’s Rio Olympics, stormed through the tournament winning all three fights en route to the final.

He delivered some astonishing throws throughout the day and that form continued into the final.

After an intense opening two minutes, Livesey threw Reed for waza-ari before following up with a yuko to win his first British Open title.

Livesey said: “I have been training really hard and this is my first gold at this tournament so I am really pleased.

"This is a good tournament to win with people coming over here from Holland. Spain and all the other countries close to us.

“ It is always nice to fight front of the home crowd as you can have your family come and watch, which is most of the time difficult as we spend a fair amount of time abroad.

“ I’ve fought Tom four times already this year but I knew what I had to do to win and I just focused on my tactics and did it.

"I just had a good day and it was a great way to come back after the European Games a fortnight ago, which were tough.

"I knew those games would be would be given how many strong competitors were attending.

"I was happy with how I fought in that, but was up against a strong fighter in round two.

"At Wembley it was good to get more fights under my belt and now I will be heading off to Taipei and hope to hopefully get some more points towards the Olympic qualification.

"We get everywhere and each place has different styles wherever we go," he said.