Tri247's Olympic pundit Steve Trew, takes a look at Hollie Avil's rapid rise to fame on the World Cup series, her inclusion in the Olympic selection race at the Madrid World Cup in May, and also takes a look at some other legendary junior athletes and their sporting accomplishments.

This wasn’t quite the article I was going to write, Sometimes though, someone or something comes along and makes you say, “hmm!” So the “hmm” factor has happened at the last couple of ITU World Cup races. Name of the hmm factor, a certain Hollie Avil by name, British by nationality.

Not the kiss of death!

Sometimes someone shakes up the establishment, and for me, eighteen year old Hollie has done so with the biggest of big bangs going into Olympic year. Now, I am very, very conscious of using this pen (well computer I guess) to inflict the kiss of death, but that’s certainly not my intention.

It’s happened before, variety of nations, variety of sports, variety of Championships; Pan American Games, Commonwealth Games, Olympic Games, when the pecking order – if not turned around (and that hasn’t yet happened here) has certainly made the chickens lift their heads from pecking and think hard.

Steve Ovett (remember him?) was once discussing age and Olympic representation and it was put to him that 18 years old was too young to be going to the Games (this was of a track athlete), to which he retorted, “That’s rubbish (typical Ovett response) you go at 18 to get the experience and then you come back four years later to win”. From a man who won European silver at 18 years old, certainly worth listening to.

And it’s not just Ovett talking; remember a 19 year-old Michael Phelps doing rather well in the pool at Athens? Of course you do, amazing. Four years before he had taken fourth place in the 200m butterfly at the Sydney games aged 15, a good experience indeed!

Way, way back, a young 21 year old by the name of David Hemery did rather well in Mexico City, smashing the world record on the way to his gold medal in the 400m hurdles. In the British rankings that year, David was ranked (around) 30th in the 400 metres flat with a time of 48.1. There was an asterisk next to his name and at the bottom of the page was the cryptic comment, 'run over 10 three foot obstacles'. A class apart.

A little nearer to home, Sian Brice went to her first Commonwealth Games as a 17 year-old track runner before making the Olympic team for Great Britain in that first ever Olympic triathlon in Sydney 2000. Staying with triathlon, Ben Bright (then representing Australia) competed in the senior World Championships in Manchester as an 18 year-old taking a top six place. Everyone had told him that he couldn’t do it; a year later he reverted to junior status in Wellington and solidly outclassed the World junior field. And who coaches 18 year-old junior Hollie Avil? A certain coach at Loughborough by the name of Ben Bright.

Still in triathlon, and then cycling world, 18 year-old Ceris Gilfillan of Great Britain switched from triathlon to cycling in 1998, she made the Commonwealth Games team that year and then went onto Sydney as a ripe old 20 year-old.

Anyone heard of Vanessa Fernandez? Not done too bad over the last four years, has she? And the breakthrough? As an 18 year-old at the Athens Olympics hitting the top ten!

Seize the moment!

So back to Hollie Avil; just 18 this year, just two World cup starts, just two medals and podium finishes, bronze and then silver the weekend just gone. Do you think there are too many of the established triathlon stars out there who haven’t looked (if they weren’t racing) at these two results and started thinking, “where the hell did this one come from?”

Let’s tell them; Hollie Avil has come from an excellent swimming background, making the National Championships over a variety of distances and strokes, most recently 800m and 1500m freestyle and 400 metres individual medley. She is also an awesome (that word!) 1500m and 3000m track runner and a superb cross country runner. And then that bike leg... In the two World cup starts she’s been superb in the middle discipline, the winter’s work with Ben Bright has assured that she doesn’t have any weaknesses.

One of the questions always mooted is, “does a good junior athlete make a good senior?” I don’t think there’s any simple answer to that; Brits Spencer Smith and Simon Lessing were the best juniors around; Canadian Olympic Champion Simon Whitfield would be the first to admit that he wasn’t. But Hollie Avil? She’s already gone out and proved it where it counts, on the circuit and now she’s achieved a starting place for the Olympic trials.

Watch this space...