ATHLETICS : Agyepong poised to clear her final hurdle

Of all the winners at last Saturday's indoor match between Great Britain and Russia, none was as graceful and apparently effortless as Jacqui Agyepong.

At 25, the athlete who has seemed the natural successor to Sally Gunnell in the sprint hurdles seems on the brink of breaking through to the very highest level.

The British 60 metres hurdles record was one of her targets for the season, but to improve it in her first competition, with a time of 8.05sec, came as a surprise to her.

Clearly the three weeks she spent training in Lanzarote before the match - her first winter training outside this country - did her no harm. But the base on which her early success stands is deeper than that.

After a number of seasons when her form, particularly in championships, was erratic - she disappointed in the World and European Junior Champ- ionships, and failed to finish her heat in the 1990 European Championships - 1994 was a year of solid achievement for her.

It began with victory in the European Cup final at Birmingham. She then lowered her personal best in the 100m hurdles to 12.93, before taking seventh place in the European Championships, a silver medal at the Commonwealth Games behind Australia's irrepressible Commonwealth record holder, Michelle Freeman and, finally, third place in the World Cup at Crystal Palace.

These were undeniable credentials from an athlete who was left out of the 1990 Commonwealth Games because of her unreliability in competition.

Agyepong, like her elder brother Francis, the international triple jumper, is a qualified chef, and if she were not an athlete she might well be running a restaurant. Last year, however, she decided that she had to commit herself fully to a career that had, up to that point, delivered less than it promised.

She took a risk, giving up her job as a catering manager in an old people's home, but the events of last season justified her decision.

Not that she suddenly became infallible. At last year's AAA indoor championships she was disqualified. And at the AAA trials in June, she lost a clear lead in the 100m hurdles final, crashing through the last three hurdles and finishing a stumbling last.

It may only have been a coincidence that Gunnell was in the latter race. Although Agyepong should now be superior to the 400m hurdles world champion at her old event, she has yet to beat Gunnell. Whether her competitiveness in that respect is inhibited by the fact that she has parted company with the coach who developed her talent, John Isaacs, and now shares Gunnell's coach, Bruce Longden, is a moot point.

Agyepong herself is full of praise for the influence which Longden, and indeed Gunnell, have had on her career. But she has no thoughts yet of following her training partner's route to the 400m hurdles - "I want to conquer the sprint hurdles before I move over," she said.

This summer the European Cup and the World Champ- ionships beckon. Before that, she is after a medal at the World Indoor Championships in Barcelona. And as part of her sharpening-up exercise, she has entered herself for the sprints at this weekend's AAA Indoor Championships at Birmingham's national arena.

"British women are sick and tired of being put down," Agyepong said after Saturday's performance, when she was among five British women who won their event. "Now we are ready to do what we are capable of doing."

The vehemence of her statement seemed to stem from a personal conviction.