Lisa Kearney

Kearney started judo at primary school in order to join her friends.[3] Whilst still a child in 1999, she won silver in the −27 kg category of the Northern Ireland Judo Championships.[4] In 2009, she became the first judoka representing Ireland to reach the final of a Judo World Cup.[5] In 2012, she recovered from injury earned qualification for the Women's −48 kg judo at the 2012 Olympic Games in London by finishing in the top 14 in the International Judo Federation rankings.[3][6] In doing so, she became the first female judoka representing Ireland to compete at the Olympics. However, she lost her opening match to Wu Shegun of China.[7] The national Irish public broadcaster Raidió Teilifís Éireann was criticised for not featuring her match in their television coverage.[8] During 2013, she missed several events due to injury but got back into competing in preparation for the Commonwealth Games.[9] In 2014, Kearney represented Northern Ireland at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in the Women's −52 kg category and won the bronze medal with an armbar submission of Canada's Audrée Francis-Méthot, which was also Northern Ireland's first medal of the games.[10]

She had aimed to compete at the 2016 Summer Olympics but suffered a knee injury which ruled her out of the Olympics as she was unable to take part in the qualification tournaments.[11] She stepped out under the advice of the Sports Institute for Northern Ireland who oversaw her rehabilitation.[12] In 2017, she announced her retirement from competitive judo.[13] Kearney had won four World Cup gold medals.[14]

Kearney was born on 27 May 1989 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She studied psychology as a student at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland.[2]