Sport Features

Sixteen-year-old Amoret, or Amo to her friends, has just returned from Belgrade, where she picked up a silver medal in kayaking's Junior European Flatwater Sprint Championships.

"We were really thrilled to get silver," says Amo. "We were going for any medal - even bronze would have been a massive achievement.

"We weren't close to getting the gold, there was a reasonable gap. At about half way we were in fifth position then pulled through in the last three hundred metres.

Olympic prospect

To already be claiming silver medals at the top level for her age group is promising, especially as sprint flatwater kayaking is an Olympic discipline.

Amo, who trains at Reading Canoe Club, is therefore a real contender to represent Great Britain at London 2012. She is already a member of the GB junior squad for flatwater kayaking.

She's particularly keen to make the grade in time for her home Olympics, since world class events in Britain are few and far between. The next is scheduled for 2009.

"I really hope I'm an Olympic prospect. I definitely won't be old or fast enough by 2008 but I'm hoping to be by 2012, and possibly an Olympics beyond that.

"For sprint racing, because it's an Olympic discipline, there's money behind it and the Belgrade trip was funded. But marathon racing isn't, so I'll have to make a contribution for my trip to Hungary."

That trip takes place just a few days after the Belgrade success, and rather than a 1,000-metre sprint, Amo and partner Jess will have to race over twelve miles in Gyor, Hungary.

Amo insists that racing in places like Hungary and Serbia isn't too far removed from the more familiar environment of the Thames in Reading.

"I do three training sessions a day - ranging from a 30 minute run to an hour and a half on the water - six days a week, at Reading Canoe Club.

"It's not that different. I do flatwater racing so all my racing's on flat water and there's not a lot of flow."

The alternative to flatwater is the downhill kayaking, but the woman who might bring an Olympic medal back to Berkshire in 2012 insists she's already found the sport for her.

"Downhill's a bit scary for me to be honest. I'm quite happy with my nice, safe, flat lakes."