Born in
Dunchurch, Warwickshire, Merry had a career that spanned 20 years. A member of the
Birchfield Harriers athletics club, at the age of 12 she topped the UK Under 13 rankings in seven different events. She was the fastest girl in the world aged 14 years, and started her international GB career aged just 13, staying on the junior team for a record six years, winning five Junior Championships and a total of six medals. She became a successful senior athlete with her
Olympic medal in Sydney in the "Race of the Games", achieving bronze behind the Australian favourite,
Cathy Freeman, in front of 112,000 people at
Stadium Australia. The following year she became World number One. She was coached by fellow Olympic medallist
Linford Christie in his
Cardiff-based training squad, which included fellow Olympic medallist
Darren Campbell. She is also with Christie's sports agency, Nuff Respect. Merry still holds various UK age-record bests, including U/13
high jump and several sprints, as well as the
Senior UK Indoor 200 m record of 22.83 secs. She also holds World age-records, including 7.35 secs for
60 m indoors, when aged 14. She is third-fastest on the UK All Time 400 m list with a time of 49.59 seconds. After suffering from a
bone spur growth on her right heel bone, and two operations, Merry announced her official retirement from athletics in July 2005. She had been affected by the injury since 2001 and was struggling to get it fully healed. It had prevented her from resuming proper training, meaning she could not get back to her year 2000 form. Despite that, she still ended the 2001 season as the world's fastest female 400 m runner.
Post-athletics Merry now works freelance in the media on radio and TV. She worked for the
BBC Radio 5 Live at the Olympics in
Beijing and
London and the Commonwealth Games in
Delhi and was the sole field event commentator for the
Channel 4 coverage of the
Paralympic Games in 2012. At the inaugural
Invictus Games in 2014, Merry did live trackside interviews. For the
Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games, Merry was a television commentator for the BBC's coverage of athletic events. She also returned to
5 Live to commentate on the
Paris 2024 Olympics. She has also worked for
Sky TV,
Eurosport and
Channel Five. A multi-tasker, Merry now commentates, presents and hosts sporting events around the world. Merry appeared on the
BBC One gameshow
All New Celebrity Total Wipeout on 25 September 2010, where she struck up a rivalry with
John Regis, the man who, in her words, "ate all the pies". She "ran" the qualifier in 2:16, beating Regis by 50 seconds, and then beating him again in the next two rounds, but losing finally in the Wipeout Zone, finishing third behind Regis and eventual winner DJ
JK. She won overall, 3 events to 1. She is a regular on BBC One's
A Question of Sport and
BBC Radio 5 Live's Fighting Talk. In December 2013, Merry came third out of four contestants on
Celebrity Mastermind on BBC One. Her specialist subject was
Aston Villa F.C. 1980–1990. Merry was inducted into the
England Athletics Hall of Fame in 2018. At the
2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Merry became the first female in-stadium announcer at an Olympic Games. In January 2024, Merry was named by Aston Villa as a member of the
Honorary Anniversary Board ahead of the club's 150th anniversary season, as well as previously becoming a AVFC Foundation Ambassador. ==Personal life==