HORIZON Taekwondo athlete Will Burleigh did his country proud over the weekend, reaching a European semi-final.

Team GB only sent eight athletes to the European Cadet Championships in Serbia, rather than the full allocation of 20, due to performance expectations not being met by athletes bidding for the other 12 spaces.

Of those eight, only Burleigh, who attends Horizon’s club in Keighley, managed to win a medal.

In the -180cm category, Will defeated Greek opponent Georgios Zmpitas 2-0 in order to reach the last-eight.

At the quarter-final stage, the youngster, from Bradford, won 2-0 again, this time against Spain’s Erik Rubio.

That put Will into the semi-final, where he was narrowly defeated 2-1 by Belgian youngster Ayoub Skiker.

Ayoub fell short in the final though, going down 2-0 to gold medallist Tymur Holub of Ukraine.

Natalie Simpson-Kidd, a coach at Horizon, was coaching Team GB at the event in Serbia and supported Will all the way on his run to the bronze medal.

Apart from Will, the best British performer was Paige Vincent.

The youngster beat Sweden’s Emilia Millberg in the last-32 of her category and Ukraine’s Kira Hryhorieva in the last-16, but she lost to Serbia’s Teodora Jovanovic in the quarter-finals.