Susan Smith (later Walsh) competed in the women’s 400 metres hurdles at two Olympic Games – reaching the semi-finals at Atlanta 1996 and finishing 4th in her heat at Sydney 2000, where she pulled a hamstring in the warm-up but insisted on running regardless.

From Waterford, she came from a family steeped in GAA tradition – her grand-uncle John Keane captained Waterford to the county’s first All-Ireland senior hurling title in 1948, was selected at centre half-back on the GAA Team of the Century in 1984 and the Team of the Millennium in 2000.

She began her athletic career in the Community Games, was a member of St Paul’s AC and later Waterford AC, and dominated Irish athletics at school and junior level through the second half of the 1980s. Gifted both athletically and academically, she was awarded a place at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she won fifteen individual Ivy League titles and nine relay titles – a record collection for an Ivy League athlete.

She set six new Irish records during the 1996 season, with her Atlanta semi-final time of 54.93 seconds – the sixth – making her the first Irish athlete to break the 55.00 seconds barrier in the event. She was just 0.52 seconds outside a final place. At the 1997 World Championships in Athens she reached the 400 metres hurdles final, becoming the first Irish athlete ever to qualify for a sprint final at a major championship, and finished 7th. Her Irish record now stands at 54.31 seconds.