Texaco Young Sportstar Award: Gráinne Murphy

Champion swimmer Grainne Murphy has picked up the 2009 Texaco Young Sportstar Award.

After winning her third gold medal at the European Junior Swimming Championships in Prague, the 16-year-old swimmer from Ballinaboola in Co. Wexford commented that the enormity of her success had not really sunk in. In the 800 metres final she established a new junior and senior Irish record.

Two days before that she had triumphed in the 400 metres individual medley and her third gold came in the 200 metres individual medley. She also took bronze in the 1500 freestyle. In that month she broke two European junior, four Irish senior and 10 Irish junior records – one of them the gold medal-winning time of Michelle Smith de Bruin at Atlanta.

Cóilín Duffy spoke to Grainne at the Texaco Sportstar Awards