KARATE star Lindsey Andrews was able to buck the trend by winning the Senior Ladies Award for a second consecutive year.

Andrews, who co-owns Shin Gi Tai Martial Arts Academy with her husband, Bryan, has won gold at every competition she entered for the last two years.

Despite this, she was still surprised to become the first woman to achieve back-to-back wins in more than 10 years.

Andrews said: “I was looking through the programme and realised that nobody had won twice in a row recently. Then I heard what all of the other finalists have achieved and I really wasn’t expecting to win because there was some amazing talent.”

The highlight of a hugely successful 2014 for Andrews was victory in the kata at the World Championships, but she admits that it takes a while for the feeling of becoming a world champion to sink in.

“It’s just a relief to get the competition over and done with when you first finish,” she said. “You spend so long building up to a World Championship and making sure you are in exactly the right condition, that when you do it, the overwhelming emotion is a sense of relief that you can wind down.”

Andrews will not get the chance to defend her world title this year as the event is biannual. Instead she plans to focus on maintaining her fantastic unbeaten record at the European Championships.