CHASE Armitage, recently awarded a scholarship by the Basingstoke Sports Trust, won three silver medals at the national wu shu championships.

The 18-year-old from Popley missed one gold by just five hundredths of a mark when he competed against top British squad members at Milton Keynes.

Basingstoke-born Armitage (pictured above) went to John Hunt of Everest School and has just finished a course at BCOT.

Wu shu is a gymnastic form of kung fu and is likely to be included in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

Armitage trains at the Chen Wu Kaun club in Reading and won two gold medals in last year's junior championships - in nanquan and sansou.

Last September, he entered the British national traditional championships at Bletchley, where he won two golds to become the British champion in nanquan and in the 70kg sansou.

This year, at the national wu shu championships, he won silver in nanquan, missing gold by just .05 of a mark, silver in freestyle nanquan and silver in the dulian three-man routine.

Armitage was one of 10 athletes at Gazette Sports Awards night in March to be awarded a scholarship to train at Basingstoke Sports Centre for five years.