Taekwondo silver medallist Isabelle Sava has died at the age of 19 after suffering a sudden cardiac arrest in her sleep, her family has confirmed.
The young British fighter, a rising force in the sport and a law student at Queen Mary University of London, could not be revived despite desperate efforts from emergency services, according to a GoFundMe page set up in her memory.
Her parents, Laura and Ovi Sava, are described on the page as facing “every parent’s worst nightmare – the sudden and unimaginable loss of their beautiful and only daughter, Isabelle, at just 19 years old.”
Paramedics “fought desperately to resuscitate her” but “Isabelle could not be saved,” the tribute reads.
A decade on the mats
Sava’s life had been split between the lecture hall and the dojang. About to begin her second year studying LLB law, she was working towards her ambition of becoming a commercial lawyer, while carrying the pedigree of an elite martial artist.
Taekwondo was not a hobby. It was a central pillar of her life for more than 10 years. Through “years of training, discipline, perseverance and determination,” she rose to second-degree black belt, a level that underlined both talent and relentless work.
Her breakthrough moment came on the international stage in 2022. Representing Team UK at the World Taekwondo Championships in the Netherlands, Sava stormed through a tough draw to win silver in sparring on her very first global outing.
For many, that medal looked like the start of something. Not the peak.
A club in mourning
Her club, Trenic TKD, where she began training in 2015 at the Yeading Academy, paid an emotional tribute on Instagram.
The academy recalled how she “quickly advanced through the ranks, achieving her 1st Degree Black Belt in 2019 and her 2nd Degree in 2021,” while already establishing herself as a regional and national champion before stepping up to world level.
In that debut World Championships, they said, she “proved her extraordinary skill and spirit, battling through tough opponents to secure a silver medal in sparring.”
Yet the messages from Trenic TKD went beyond medals and belts. The club described her as “a pleasure to teach, train alongside, and know,” and said she will be “sorely missed by everyone who had the privilege of meeting her across the Taekwon-Do community.”
Their statement closed with a message to those closest to her: “Our deepest thoughts, love, and prayers are with her family and friends during this heart-breaking time.”
Support for the family
The GoFundMe appeal has been launched to help cover funeral and memorial costs and “other unexpected costs the family is facing following her sudden passing.” By Monday morning, it had raised more than £13,900 of its £16,000 target from over 330 donations, a reflection of the impact she made in a short life.
Behind the numbers sits a brutal medical reality. Cardiac arrest, as defined by the Cleveland Clinic, is a life-threatening emergency in which the heart suddenly stops beating and fails to pump blood to the brain and other vital organs. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada notes that about 60,000 cardiac arrests occur outside hospitals in Canada each year, with only one in 10 people surviving.
Warning signs can include sudden collapse, loss of consciousness, unresponsiveness to touch or sound, and not breathing or not breathing normally.
For the taekwondo community, and for a family who had watched their only daughter excel in both sport and study, those clinical details sit alongside a harsher truth: a career and a life cut off just as they were beginning to take shape.
