Conway clinches bronze to win Britain’s first medal at World Championships in Tokyo
Sally Conway won Britain’s first medal of the World Judo Championships, claiming bronze in the -70kg category, in Tokyo yesterday.
The 32-year-old, who trains at Judo Scotland’s base in Ratho, defeated Gulnoza Matniyazova of Uzbekistan, Germany’s Giovanna Scoccimarro and world-ranked No 3 Anna Bernholm of Sweden to win her pool and progress to the semi-finals where she faced world No 2 Marie-eve Gahie of France.
Gahie, the 2018 World Championship silver medallist, capitalised on a Conway mistake to win the match with an osaekomi and ultimately went on to win the gold medal.
Conway proceeded to the bronze-medal match to face Michaela Polleres of Austria and was dominant from the start, scoring a waza-ari early in the contest, only for Polleres to even the score. However, this did not faze Conway as she threw her opponent for ippon to win the match and claim her first World Championship medal, adding to her Olympic bronze and European silver.
“I just wanted to turn up today and give my best fight and performance,” said the Scottish internationalist. “I’m happy I was able to do this and produce a medal at my eighth World Championships.”
Senior performance head coach, Kate Howey said: “Sally put in a hard and gritty performance, winning all her fights with throws which shows after all the experience she has, she is still making improvements and she didn’t win any fight in ne-waza (ground techniques). I’m really pleased for her to complete the set of World, Olympic and European medals.”