Maher is a deserving winner

The only surprise about yesterday's EBS Young Athlete of the Year award for Emily Maher was how much she had achieved while still in the junior ranks. The Sydney Olympics was the obvious highlight, but athletes love talking about times, and that's what Maher found most satisfying.

Last July, she improved her 200-metres best to 23.34 seconds. With the 4x400 metre relay squad in Sydney, Maher helped to improve the Irish record to 3:32.24 - one of the few positive results to come out of the Olympics.

"Running that fast 200 metres really pushed me on for the year," she said. "The aim now is to get those sprint times down even further, and then consider a move up to the 400 metres. Maybe we didn't get enough credit for what we did in Sydney but it just makes you stronger, and makes you want to run faster."

Still only 19, the Kilkenny athlete has come a long way since first turning heads two years ago with a sprint double at the Youth Olympics in Moscow.

Soon after, she began a coaching relationship with Britain's former Olympic champion Linford Christie, and is now based with his sprint training group in Cardiff. British Olympic medallists Katharine Merry and Darren Campbell are among her training partners.

"It is fantastic to be in a group like that. It gives you that extra bit of confidence when you are training with the best. I also have full confidence in Linford as a coach.

"He offers so much support and advice, and before I met him I used to hate going training. And you just have to look at the results of his group in Sydney to see how good he is."

Maher's year didn't end after the Oympics. From there she went to the World Junior Championships in Santiago Chile, where she made the final in both the 100 and 200 metres.

Before that, no Irish junior woman had made a world junior final in any event. She ended the season with a top-10 world junior ranking in the 100 (sixth) and 200 metres (ninth). Next up is two months training in Florida. The European under-23 championships in Italy in July is the immediate target, but she is also confident of making the Irish team for the Edmonton World Championships.