Katharine Merry

Katharine is one of Britain’s most outstanding female athletes. Having been the fastest girl in the world aged 14 she then, 12 years later, became the fastest woman in world over 400m, as well as picking up an Olympic medal. Labeled as one of Britain’s most talented athletes ever, Katharine’s success at junior level was outstanding.

She starting running for Great Britain at the age of just 13 years old and still holds UK age records in a variety of events. Aged 14 she ran a stunning 7.35secs indoors for the 60m, becoming the fastest girl in the world ever over the distance. This is still a World age 14 record 27 years later!

But of all the Championships and the medals it’s the Sydney 2000 Olympics where Katharine really excelled. With a 112,000 capacity crowd Katharine ran a fantastic race and claimed a Bronze medal. Everyone agrees that the women’s 400m final, won by Australian Cathy Freeman, was the race of the Games and has gone down in history as one of the most iconic Olympic races in history, watched by 10 of millions around the World.

The following year Katharine was the fastest woman in the World over 400m running 49.59s. Unfortunately injury struck and she sadly decided to retire from athletics in 2005 after battling to get back from injury.

Katharine has since successfully built a very impressive broadcasting and speaking career. A multi skilled broadcaster, she presents live TV, lead commentates on athletics and netball and is labelled by others as the best infield host of sports events in the World.

She works for BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky Sports, Eurosport and others. She became televisions 1^st female lead athletics commentator for Channel 4 in 2009 and the 1^st female lead athletics commentator for the BBC last year. As well as working on the last 2 Olympics for the BBC and being part of the Bafta winning Channel 4 coverage of London 2012, she also hosts major sporting events in the UK, Europe and America.

A corporate event and sports awards host who, having made many appearances on popular TV shows like Question of Sport, Celebrity Pointless and Celebrity Mastermind gives Katharine a wider platform and only increases her popularity.

An established speaker in the business and sporting world, she speaks of her unique journey of becoming an Olympic medalist and world number one, and her transition to successful broadcaster, sharing the skill sets needed including goal setting, teamwork and persistence.