Isis Holt

Holt only took up athletics in 2014 – the following year, at just 14-years-old, she lined up at her first World Championships, and with her family watching in the stands, stormed home to win two gold medals.

Holt’s victory in the 100m T35 in Doha, Qatar, was made all the more exciting as she raced against another talented teenager, Great Britain’s Maria Lyle, the European champion and former world record holder.

The Australian held strong to the tape though, clocking 13.63 as she knocked 0.53 off the previous world record she set in March that year.

Holt’s victory in the 200m was just as emphatic as she saw off a field including Lyle and the defending world champion Oxana Corso of Italy. Her time of 28.57 was yet another world record, and knocked nearly a second off the mark she set in Brisbane that March.

Hopes were high for the youngster at the Rio Paralympic Games, but she was thwarted in her quest for double sprint gold by China’s Zhou Xia, another talented teenager who took the tape in both the 100m and 200m T35, breaking Holt’s 200m T35 world record in the process.

Holt had to settle for silver that time around but she got her revenge at London 2017 with two standout performances, first over 200m where she set a new championship record of 28.47, then in the 100m three days later where she saw off the likes of Zhou and Lyle once again, lowering her own world record in the process (13.43).