Commonwealth Games gold medallist Louise Renicks encouraged the pupils of St George’s C of E School, Barrow to stay active during a special visit on Monday.

Renicks, who competed for Great Britain in judo, gave a talk about what it takes to be a successful athlete, which included informing what the right things to eat are and going through the sacrifices she made to get to the top of her sport.

She then gave small training circuit sessions to each year group, for which the pupils had raised over £900 in sponsorship money for the chance to have their photo taken with Renicks and her medal.

Renicks said: “The talk was about my journey as a judo athlete, but also about how exercising is important.

“Hopefully from that, if it could get more kids into judo that would be brilliant, but if we can get kids to get into athletics or go to a gymnastics club then we’ve achieved our aim.”

Renicks’ biggest achievement came in 2014 when, competing for Scotland, she won her gold medal in the -52kg category at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, less than an hour after her sister Kimberley had done the same in her own weight division.

The 36-year-old, who retired through injury in 2015, competed at the Veterans European Judo Championships in June and she takes great satisfaction from taking these sessions.

“I find them very rewarding,” Renicks said, adding: “I enjoy giving back to people, I enjoy being that role model, but at the end of the day I just play a small part.

“Schools play a bigger part, parents play bigger parts and the clubs play bigger parts.”