Super Sally!
Edinburgh's Sally Conway won silver, in the under 78kg weight category, at the Junior World Championships, which took place in the Dominican Republic on the 21st October. The win for Conway, who trains at the Edinburgh Judo Club, Leith, is made even more remarkable as it comes in a category above her usual under 70kg category.
The result is a personal best for the Junior British Open Champion, who has won bronze in the Tre Torri International and silver in the Junior Estonian A Tournament already this year.
Edinburgh Club coach David Somerville who traveled with Conway to the Dominican delivered high praise on the young star "Sally struggled slightly in her first outing at the heavier weight in September at the European Championships but showed remarkable maturity in adapting her fight strategies successfully in such a short space of time for the World Championships". Evidence of this was seen during Conway's quarter-final match against European Bronze medalist Lea Murko of Slovenia. Conway, who was convincingly beat in under 30secs at the Euro Championships out fought and out thought the Slovenian eventually beating her by an Ippon (knock out win).
Conway's Silver makes her the Edinburgh Clubs most successful competitor ever at junior level. Edinburgh club Head Coach Billy Cusack pointed out that this bodes well for the club's future "This should only be the start for Sally. Conway could represent the club at major championships for another 12 years, the possibilities are almost endless"
Sally commented "I felt it was a huge help to me to have one of my personal coaches, David with me at the tournament. He helped me to focus during the day both mentally and tactically". Not only is this a fantastic result for one of are up and coming stars, but a fantastic result for David, one of our best coaches.