Deirdre Ryan represented Ireland in the women’s high jump at the 2012 London Olympic Games.

Her journey to London was one of the most persistence-testing in Irish athletics. A member of Dundrum South Dublin AC, Ryan tried numerous sports as a child before taking up the high jump around the age of 13, and endured a succession of serious injuries throughout her career – including a stress fracture in 2003, torn ligaments in both feet in early 2011, and an ankle sprain weeks before the Games. The breakthrough came at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, where she set a new Irish record of 1.95 metres to qualify for the final and finished joint sixth – later upgraded to fifth when a Russian competitor was disqualified.

She had studied International Commerce with Italian at UCD and an MBS at UCD Smurfit Graduate Business School, and trained under coach Gerd Osenberg in Leverkusen, Germany, learning German in the process – having previously worked and trained in Milan having learned Italian.

She was named Irish Times Sportswoman of the Month for August 2011 following her Daegu performance.