IT WAS another successful weekend for two local martial arts competitors as they both brought gold back to the Wee County.

Craig McIntosh and Gary Priestly both topped the podium in their weight classes at one of the world’s biggest submission grappling competitions for the second year in a row.

The competition, NAGA, takes place once a year offering a prestigious championship belts for their expert category winners.

Gary was first up on the day competing in the under 60kg Expert Division against some tough competition. He was able to win his first match with a dominant points victory advancing him to the final.

The Alloa man was then up against it in the final facing a well-respected Black Belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu from England, Trevor Birmingham.

Gary dropped some points at the beginning of the match due to his opponent scoring a takedown on him. Thankfully, however, Gary was not ready to stay down and managed to pull back the lead scoring a takedown of his own and a very close submission attempt to win the match by judges decision.

When Gary won the belt last year he promised his two kids he would go back next year to win again so they could have a belt each, adding that he doesn’t break promises to his kids.

The champion wanted to thank his coach Craig and all his team mates at The Scottish Martial Arts Centre and New Life gym in Glasgow for their help in preparation for the competition.

Next up was Craig who was coming off a huge victory a few weeks before winning the Scottish Grappling Invitation under 80kg championship and was looking to add another belt to his collection.

Craig was able to win all of his matches by submission taking gold in the under 75kg Expert Division before deciding to tackle the open weight category.

In the open contest he managed to submit several much larger opponents but eventually lost a close judges’ decision to take bronze against some of Europe’s best grapplers.

Craig currently teaches MMA and submission grappling at the Scottish Martial Arts Centre in Tullibody and wanted to thank all his team mates and students for their support.