Sixty seconds with Madeline Perry
Name:Madeline Perry.
Schools: Banbridge Primary School, Banbridge Academy and then Queen's University, Belfast.
Sport: Squash.
Other school sports: Hockey, tennis, athletics, cricket and football.
Who got you started?My parents had both played squash before I was born and then my older brother played at the local club, so I wanted to try it. I really loved the speed and excitement and was entering tournaments after a couple of months of starting. But I was in to all sports from a very young age, as were my older brother and two younger sisters.
The Best of Days: Playing hockey every Saturday morning and all of the competitive cup matches. I can actually remember scoring a penalty flick when I was 10 years old in a primary school match. I have various other memories of so many moments, tennis matches, races, playing football, etc.
The Worst of Days: Coming second in the 400 metres at school – I expected to win everything I entered on school sports day!
Most inspiring sporting memory: Andre Agassi winning Wimbledon.
I wished I was: Andre Agassi – I loved the way he looked and the way he played tennis, his very attacking style and the charisma he brought to the game. I watched every match and can remember getting so nervous every time he played!
If I could turn back time: I probably would have trained a bit harder so I wouldn't have to do so much hard work over the past few years. I probably didn't understand all of the training aspects and it was many years before I had really good advice on my physical training programme – to be honest, until I was about 23 I did that side of things on my own. Now, when I'm at the Institute of Sport I see young athletes getting great support and it makes me very jealous! When I was young I was a very talented sportswoman and that was enough for me, but I now realise it is also necessary to work very hard.
The value of school sport to you: While at school sport was a huge part of my life, I wanted to be in every team and compete in every event! I loved playing in the hockey teams – it was very good for me because squash, of course, is an individual sport. I played a lot of squash outside school so the combination of all of these definitely, at times, affected my studies.
Most Admired: Roger Federer – because he is such a good player and also such a gentleman.
Not Too Keen: Premiership footballers! I feel they are paid so much money the least they could do is not swear at the ref and misbehave all the time!
One sporting wish: I really want squash to be in the Olympics in 2016. I'm not sure I will be there, but a true sport like squash really deserves to be.
Madeline Perry, the 32-year-old from Banbridge, Co Down, is the 10-time Irish national squash champion and is currently ranked at nine in the world.
