Katharine Merry

Katharine is one of Britain’s most outstanding female athletes of all time. Having been the fastest girl in the world aged 14 she then, 12 years later, became the fastest woman in world over 400m. Labelled as one of Britain’s most talented female sprinters, Katharine’s success at junior level was outstanding.

She achieved an unprecedented 9 AAA’s age group titles over 100m and 200m, as well as winning 4 English Schools titles, including the pentathlon. She set a World Age record aged 12 of 25.4secs over 200m in 1987 and made her GB under 20 debut at the astonishingly young age of 13 years old, going on to a record 6 years as a GB junior International.

Aged just 14 she ran a stunning 7.35secs indoors for the 60m, becoming the fastest girl in the world ever over the distance. Outdoors that year she also ran 11.47secs for the 100m and 23.72secs for the 200m in her first ever overseas competition in America.

Katharine came into the 2000 season with one sole objective, The Olympics. With a 112,000 capacity crowd Kath ran a fantastic race where she came third and collected the Bronze medal, breaking the magical 50sec barrier for the first time.

Still today she holds UK age records in a variety of events including the pentathlon and hurdles.

In 2006 UK Athletics appointed Katharine as UKA and Norwich Union Athlete Mentor to assist current junior athletes in their long term preparations for major championships and their lives as professional athletes. She is also an experienced motivational speaker, working with both sporting organisations and other corporate clients.
Katharine has always been in demand off the track, her blonde hair and good looks have seen her featured in magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Sunday Express, Good House Keeping, Health & Fitness and Marie Claire. Television appearances include BBC’s “A Question of Sport”, “They Think It’s All Over”, “Superstars”, “Through the Keyhole” and “Diet Doctors”. She has been a Sports Pundit for BBC TV and Radio, Eurosport and Sky TV, as well as the lead presenter of the London Triathlon for BBC Grandstand, BBC’s ‘Olympic Diary’ feature on Grandstand, and a programme for Open University on “Stars”.

Katharine’s media career is now established and she reinforced this in 2006 when presenting a series of features and live programmes for regional BBC TV and radio. As a key part of the BBC Major Championship coverage team across all sports including Athletics, Triathlon and Modern Pentathlon. Kath has worked on 2 Commonwealth Games, 2 World Championships, European Championships and Olympic Games. She is also the infield presenter at all GB televised Track and Field events and a presenter for Nova International (Great Run Series) on Channel 5. She is a regular on Radio 5 Live, working alongside Steve Parry on the monthly “London Calling” series and has held her own on the hugely competitive “Fighting Talk” (Radio 5 Live).

Kath is now part of the BBC’s live Great North Run and London Marathon Presenting Team and was the key trackside interviewer at the Commonwealth Games, European Championships and Major Grand Prix events in 2010 for BBC Radio 5 Live.

Kath gave birth to her first child, Lucas, in February. She has kept a regular diary of her pregnancy and the days since Lucas’ arrival through her blog on www.ivillage.co.uk.

Always in demand, Kath has been asked back to be part of the BBC team at the Virgin London Marathon. She will be co-presenting weekend breakfast for BBC Radio 5 Live before working for BBC TV as a reporter at Big Ben. Kath has also been asked to be a part of Channel 4’s Commentary Team at the 2011 BT Paralympics World Cup in Manchester, which will be taking place in May.