Megan Fletcher

Megan Fletcher was born on 2 August 1989 in Reading, England. She was schooled at The Emmbrook School, in Wokingham,[1] before going to the University of Bath, where she has trained since 2007 with Team Bath.[2] As of 2014 she resides in Wokingham,[3] which is where her club, Pinewood Judo Club, is located.[4]

Besides judo, Fletcher is a trained geography teacher, and teaches part-time[5] at The Castle School, Thornbury, South Gloucestershire.[6]

Fletcher began judo at the age of 5,[7][8] and became a first dan black belt at the age of 15.[3] In 2011, Fletcher participated for Great Britain at the World University Games in China.[9]

At the 2014 Commonwealth Games, held in Glasgow, Scotland, Fletcher beat Moira de Villiers of New Zealand in the 70 kilograms judo final,[10] by ippon with tate shiho gatame.[5] Fletcher reached the final despite the fact that she had her face taped up after suffering an injury to her nose[11] against the "gold medal hope"[5] Sally Conway of Scotland in the semi-finals;[11] Conway was the British judo number one going into the tournament.[5] After her victory in the final, Fletcher dedicated it to her sensei, Don Werner, who had been her coach at Pinewood and died in January 2014 of cancer.[6] Fletcher's younger brother Ben Fletcher was due to compete in the judo 73 kilograms (161 lb) category, but a week before the event he suffered an injury and was forced to withdraw; he was replaced by Danny Williams.[10] Megan is currently ranked 40th in the world in the 70kg category by the International Judo Federation.[12]

Megan now works as a Geography teacher at The Castle School Thornbury.