The Irish TimesSportswoman of the Year January award:Since the start of The Irish TimesSportswoman of the Year awards in 2004 several of our most notable monthly winners have been young athletes - including Derval O'Rourke, Eileen O'Keeffe, Joanne Cuddihy and Fionnuala Britton - who have since gone on to establish themselves on the list of Ireland's brightest sporting talent.

The first month of 2008 has given us another who is very definitely on the "one to watch" list, although at just 19 Kelly Proper has plenty of time on her side.

The Waterford city woman, though, has already a clutch of awards to her name, the most prestigious of all Athletic Ireland's Junior Athlete of the Year for 2007 for her performances in the long jump.

After the most intensive winter training of her young career, during which she trained eight times a week, treating herself to "Sunday off", Proper has reaped the benefits in the opening days of 2008, breaking the Irish indoor record over three successive meetings in Nenagh, Belfast and Cardiff.

In the first major fixture of the year in Nenagh she broke her own indoor long jump record, taking it to 6.25 metres, improving it by three centimetres in Belfast a fortnight later.

That was January. In February she broke her record yet again, taking it to 6.32 metres at the Celtic Cup International indoor meeting in Cardiff. Come summer she will set her sights on Terri Horgan's 16-year-old outdoor record of 6.48 metres.

"I'm really happy with how the year has started, it just feels like the hard work through the winter is beginning to show," she said yesterday when we tracked her down en route to London with her mother, Yvonne.

Proper is one of a small Irish team selected to compete as guests in today's Britain versus the Netherlands jumps international at Lee Valley Stadium.

"I'm getting stronger in each competition," she said. "Mentally, too, I feel stronger. It's almost like the bigger the competition, the higher the standard, the more I enjoy it and the more I feel I can do well."

Proper credits Bríd Hallissey-Golden, her coach at Ferrybank Athletic Club in Waterford, for much of her progress, not least for working her so hard through the winter. The student has a teacher with an impeccable pedigree, Hallissey-Golden breaking the Irish heptathlon record when she was 16 and improving on it over the next 12 years.

Having done her Leaving Certificate last summer, Proper, who is now studying Sports and Recreation, is finding more time to devote to athletics, and is intent in giving it her all.

"I'm the same as any athlete; you watch your friends going out and having a good social life. But I could be going with them if I wanted to; it's just a choice I've made. I don't want to miss out on a chance of being an athlete, I don't want to wake up in five years thinking what I could have done.

"For me the best feeling ever is getting a personal best, just knowing I've done better than I ever did before. That's what it's all about, that feeling. I don't think about medals or records. I just want to feel I'm doing my absolute best and to know I've jumped as well as I could. I'm happy then."

A sporting all-rounder in her (even) younger days, gymnastics, camogie and basketball among her other pursuits, Proper is also a talented sprinter, as long-jumpers tend to be, winning the 60 and 200 metres, in personal best times, in Nenagh last month.

For now, though, her greatest challenge, she admits, is "finding clean clothes" as she sets off for each competition. This week London, in a fortnight Scotland, and then the preparations for the outdoor season begin.

"The travelling is the worst part of it, but I have no complaints, I'm really happy with the way the year has started and I just look forward so much to every competition now. I'm feeling great."

London 2012 is her ultimate target, although Beijing this year isn't yet ruled out - if she reaches the B qualifying standard she could yet make the Irish Olympic team, even if, so early in her senior career, going there would only be "to gain experience".

Kelly Proper is, then, one to watch. At 19 she has all the time in the world, but it seems like she's in a big hurry to reach her goals.