Swimming Champion Gráinne Murphy chosen as Texaco Young Sportstar Award winner
DUBLIN, THURSDAY, 12TH NOVEMBER 2009 - Champion swimmer Gráinne Murphy from Ballinaboola in Co. Wexford has been chosen winner of the 2009 Texaco Young Sportstar of the Year award.
After winning her third gold medal at the European Junior Swimming Championships in Prague, the 16-year-old swimmer 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.
She becomes the second young sportstar to win the Texaco Young Sportstar of the Year award - last year, the inaugural award went to identical twins, golfers Leona and Lisa Maguire from Ballyconnell in Co. Cavan.
Introduced as part of the annual Texaco Sportstars Awards programme, the Young Sportstar Award is aimed at a younger generation of sports stars of 18-years and under, its purpose being to recognise and applaud success on the part of young people and to encourage them in their efforts to become sport stars of the future.
Alongside the nine senior sports stars chosen to receive Texaco Sportstars Awards this year, Gráinne Murphy will be presented with her specially-commissioned Texaco Young Sportstar trophy at a ceremony which takes place in Dublin on 19th November next at which An Taoiseach, Brian Cowen TD will be Guest of Honour.
Congratulating Gráinne on her success, Enda Riney, Country Chairman, Chevron (Ireland) Limited said that ‘her potential, reflected in her achievements to date, could lead to her becoming one of Ireland’s greatest swimmers ever’.
