Katharine Merry is a former English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 female sprinter

Sprint (race)

Sprints are short running events in athletics and track and field. Races over short distances are among the oldest running competitions. The first 13 editions of the Ancient Olympic Games featured only one event—the stadion race, which was a race from one end of the stadium to the other...

.

Career

A member of the Birchfield Harriers

Birchfield Harriers

Birchfield Harriers is an athletics club, founded in 1877. Its home is at Birmingham's Alexander Stadium, England.Named after the Birchfield district of Birmingham, their previous home , at nearby Perry Barr, was Alexander Sports Ground. It still carries their badge, a running stag, rendered in...

 athletics club, Merry won a bronze medal in the 400 metre sprint at the 2000 Summer Olympics

2000 Summer Olympics

The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

 in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

Merry had a career that spanned 20 years. Aged 12 she topped the UK Under 13 Rankings in 7 different events. She was the fastest girl in the world aged 14 years old, and started her international GB career aged just 13, and stayed on the junior team for a record 6 years, which included 5 Junior Championships winning a total of 5 medals. She transferred into a successful senior athlete with her Olympic medal in Sydney, in the 'Race of the Games' winning bronze behind Australian favourite Cathy Freeman in Stadium Australia in front of 112,000 people. The following year she became World number 1. She was coached by fellow Olympic medallist Linford Christie

Linford Christie

Linford Cicero Christie OBE is a former sprinter from the United Kingdom. He is the only British man to have won gold medals in the 100 metres at all four major competitions open to British athletes: the Olympic Games, the World Championships, the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games...

 in his Cardiff

Cardiff

Cardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...

 based training squad which included fellow Olympic medallist Darren Campbell. She is also with Christie's sports agency Nuff Respect. Merry still holds various UK age record bests, including U/13 High Jump and several sprints, as well as the Senior UK Indoor 200m record of 22.83 secs. Also World age records, including aged 14, 7.35 secs for 60m indoors.

She is 2nd on the UK All Time 400m lists indoors and out. Outdoors her 49.59 secs run places her behind Kathy Cooke.

After suffering from a bone spur

Bone spur

Osteophytes, commonly referred to as bone spurs, are bony projections that form along joint margins. They should not be confused with enthesophytes, which are bony projections which form at the attachment of a tendon or ligament.-Pathophysiology:...

 growth on her right heel bone, and after 2 operations, in July 2005 Merry announced her official retirement from athletics. She had been suffering from the injury since 2001 and was struggling to get it healed fully. It had prevented her from getting back into proper training meaning she could not get back to her year 2000 form. Despite this, she still ended the 2001 season as the world's fastest female 400m runner.

Retirement

Merry now mentors British Junior athletes, and works in the media on Radio and TV including presenting for the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 and also is a regular part of BBC 5 Live, including working in Beijing at the Olympics for the BBC. As well as working and presenting for the BBC she also presents for Sky TV, Channel 4 and Channel Five. Currently she is the solo infield presenter for all the British Grand Prix Athletics meetings and also does this role in Europe and in the USA, as well as hosting other sports. Merry also does corporate speaking engagements, whilst running a free sports mentoring website elitementor.com with Christie and Campbell.
She also appeared in All New Celebrity Total Wipeout

Total Wipeout

Total Wipeout is a British game show, hosted by Richard Hammond and Amanda Byram, which first aired on 3 January 2009. Each week 20 contestants compete in a series of challenges in an attempt to win £10,000. These challenges are based in large pools of water or mud and generally involve large...

 on 25th September where she struck up a rivalry with the man who in her words "ate all the pies", John Regis

John Regis (athlete)

John Paul Lyndon Regis, MBE is a retired English sprinter. During his career, he won gold medals in the 200 metres at the 1989 World Indoor Championships and the 1990 European Championships, and a silver medal in the distance at the 1993 World Championships.He was a member of the British teams...

. She 'ran' the qualifier in 2:16 beating Regis by 50 seconds and then beating him again on the next two of the next three events (winning Crash Mountain 2nd to 6th, The Blob losing 1st to 3rd and winning The Beams 2nd to 3rd ) but losing finally in the Wipeout Zone finishing 3rd behind Regis and eventual winner DJ JK

Jason King (radio)

"JK" is a Sony Gold awarding winning British radio DJ and Rose D'Or award winning TV presenter of programmes such as Hider in the House and Escape from Scorpion Island with friend and long-time colleague Joel Ross...

. She won overall 3 events to 2.

She has appeared several times on Radio 5 live's Fighting Talk and on the edition broadcasted on 6th Nov 2010, she revealed that she was pregnant. She gave birth to a boy, Lucas in February 2011

Achievements

Year	Tournament	Venue	Result	Event
1990	IAAF World Junior Championships	Plovdiv Plovdiv Plovdiv is the second-largest city in Bulgaria after Sofia with a population of 338,153 inhabitants according to Census 2011. Plovdiv's history spans some 6,000 years, with traces of a Neolithic settlement dating to roughly 4000 BC; it is one of the oldest cities in Europe... , Bulgaria Bulgaria Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...	2nd	4x100m Relay
1992	IAAF World Junior Championships	Seoul Seoul Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world... , Korea Korea Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...	6th	100m
1993	European Junior Championships	San Sebastian San Sebastián Donostia-San Sebastián is a city and municipality located in the north of Spain, in the coast of the Bay of Biscay and 20 km away from the French border. The city is the capital of Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. The municipality’s population is 186,122 , and its... , Spain Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...	2nd	100m
			1st	200m
			1st	4x100m Relay
1994	European Cup	Birmingham Birmingham Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a... , Great Britain Great Britain Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...	2nd	100m
			2nd	200m
1996	1996 Summer Olympics 1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics of Atlanta, officially known as the Games of the XXVI Olympiad and unofficially known as the Centennial Olympics, was an international multi-sport event which was celebrated in 1996 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States....	Atlanta, United States United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...	8th	4x100m Relay
1998	European Championships 1998 European Championships in Athletics The 17th European Athletics Championships were held from 18 August to 23 August 1998 in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary.-Track:1990 |1994 |1998 |2002 |2006 |-Field:1990 |1994 |1998 |2002 |2006 |-Track:1990 |1994 |1998 |2002 |2006 |-Field:...	Budapest Budapest Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter... , Hungary Hungary Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...	3rd	4x400m Relay
1999	IAAF World Championships	Seville Seville Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level... , Spain Spain Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...	5th	400m
2000	2000 Summer Olympics 2000 Summer Olympics The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...	Sydney Sydney Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people... , Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...	3rd	400m

Getting gunged on BBC's Live and Kicking

Personal bests

Date	Event	Venue	Time
	200m		22.76 22.83 (indoors) UK Record
	400m		49.59 50.53 (indoors)

External links

• Merry at Nuff Respect, Linford Christie
  Linford Christie
  Linford Cicero Christie OBE is a former sprinter from the United Kingdom. He is the only British man to have won gold medals in the 100 metres at all four major competitions open to British athletes: the Olympic Games, the World Championships, the European Championships and the Commonwealth Games...
  
  's agency