Ashley McKenzie stormed to a well deserved gold medal at the 2011 Polish World Cup over the weekend.

The 21-year-old from London won six fights in total on Saturday 26th February, which bumped the total number of fights won by the British players over the weekend at the Polish and Czech Republic World Cups to 16.

The Brit saw off challenges from some of the World’s highest ranked players in the -60kg weight category, including Anatoliy Laskuta (UKR), Fabio Andreoli (ITA) and World Ranked no.21 Pavel Petrikov of the Czech Republic with an impressive ippon in the early rounds.

The fourth round saw McKenzie strike again with ippon, beating Michael Iten of Switzerland.

Progressing to the semi-final, Britain’s U23 Champion fought Yunlong He of China. Ranked 15th in the World, compared to McKenzie’s place at 46th, Yunlong He was an opponent the Brit had never fought before.

After a close five minutes, the fight was over and McKenzie’s yuko point earned him a place in the final against Hovhannes Davityan of Armenia.

The 2009 World Championship bronze medallist, Davityan, is one of McKenzie’s biggest rivals as he continues on the road to the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Ranked 8th in the World, the Armenian is placed 38 places higher on the International Judo Federation’s World Ranking List. But this did not phase McKenzie as he fought hard for the gold medal and won the fight by ippon.

Commenting on Ashley’s performance, Performance Director Margaret Hicks said, ''Everyone who is working with Ashley is very pleased for him to win a gold medal and the World Cup title in Poland, against some high quality opposition.

“To finish the final in the manner he did, against a player who has been winning medals at recent Olympic Qualifying tournaments, is a strong indication of his potential. We need to ensure he continues to be progressive on these improvements''.

Elsewhere in the competition, Gregg Varey (-60kg) beat BolbbaatarChimeb-Yonbon of Mongolia and Daniel Williams (-73kg) overcame Eldar Gasimov (AZE) in the first rounds of the competition.

James Millar progressed to the third round of the -60kg competition, seeing off challenges from Salamat Utarbayev (KAZ) and Charles Breton-Leduc (CAN).

Also over the weekend, eight British women competed in the 2011 Prague World Cup.

The event held in the Czech Republic saw Sarah Adlington finish in 7th place, winning against Beata Kabat (ROU).

Gemma Howell got to the third round in the -57kg weight category, winning fights against the host nation’s Monika Neuzilova and Olessya Kutsenko of Kazakhstan.

Megan Fletcher also came close to a place in the quarter final, with a bye in the first round and beating Anne-Kathrin Lisewski of Germany and Sarah Clark won her first fight in the -63kg competition against ElenaGrigorova of Bulgaria.

Owen Livesey (-73kg), Tom Davis (-81kg), Chris Sherrington (+100kg), Sophie Cox (-52kg) and Gemma Gibbons (-70kg) also competed over the weekend and Matt Purssey, who was in the original selection, withdrew due to injury.