Michelle from Carluke in Scotland, fights for Edinburgh Judo club, she is profoundly deaf and has competed in Mainstream Judo since 2011.
Michelle opened her account winning with a hold and followed this up with a choke move to defeat her 2nd opponent. Michelle then went on to defeat her 3rd opponent with a throw and hold after just 42 secs! But on paper her hardest 2 fights were still to come and Michelle never let up despatching both the silver and bronze medallists with clean throws.

Michelle then followed her junior success by taking a Bronze in the senior championships on the Sunday. It was a brave effort by Michelle and only lost out to eventual winner Sarah Adlington (a fellow Edinburgh club member) after succumbing to injury.

Michelle was asked what the challenges are regarding Judo as a young deaf athlete. “You can’t hear the coaches and have to have full attention and full focus to lip sync, referees also have no awareness to tap me to stop. In general they forget to face me and realise I need time to adjust to what they are saying”.