Amidst the euphoria of ICC Trophy success in Ireland and the controversy of Cup Match that followed, events that filled more column inches of this newspaper than we'd care to count, a magnificent athletic achievement by a young Bermudian went relatively unnoticed.

We're referring, of course, to the almost unprecedented rise from high school athlete to world champion by unassuming 15-year-old long jumper Arantxa King.

In the space of a couple of weeks, the Massachusetts-based schoolgirl won gold at the World Youth Championships in Morocco and gold again at the Pan-Am Junior Championships in Canada.

Both were outstanding accomplishments, put fully in perspective by the fact that had she qualified for the senior World Athletic Championships taking place in Helsinki, Finland this week, her best leap of 6.39 metres would not only have catapulted her into the final but placed her tenth overall.

Not bad for a youngster who nobody in athletic circles outside her home town had taken the slightest bit of notice before her sudden appearance on top of the podium.

Here in Bermuda, however, we shouldn't be too surprised.

Arantxa comes from pretty impressive athletic stock.

Her mother, Branwen Smith King, was a stalwart in international track and field competition during the 1970s and '80s and her father, Adrian King, is a former Cup Match and Bermuda international cricketer.

What, of course, is so impressive about young King's recent performances is that there's still so much room for improvement.

At 15, she beat rivals as old as 17 to win the World Youth title in Marrakesh, Morocco and in Windsor, Canada, topped a field which ranged in age from 15 to 20.

She's already qualified for next year's Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia, and while it might be over optimistic to think she could add to her medal haul at that event, there is every reason to believe that one day she could follow in the footsteps of Bermuda's most decorated athletes, Clarence (Nicky) Saunders and Brian Wellman.

Saunders remains the Island's only athlete to have claimed gold in a Commonwealth Games, having won the high jump in Auckland, New Zealand back in 1990.

Triple jumper Wellman was equally impressive, winning silver at the World Championships on the night England's Jonathan Edwards broke the world record and taking gold at the World Indoor Championships.

King still has some way to go to match those performances, but given what she's achieved this summer there's good reason to believe she has both the ability and the commitment to compete with the very best on the world stage.

Bermuda will be following her progress with both interest and anticipation.

WHILE it might have been the honourable thing to do, there seemed to be an awful lot off fuss made over the apologies by young cricketers George O'Brien and Stephen Outerbridge following their much publicised confrontation towards the end of Cup Match.

Outerbridge is alleged to have spat at O'Brien, the pace bowler retaliating with a stinging upper cut.

On TV last week they "kissed and made up" and apologised for their behaviour, which for some strange reason prompted Acting Premier Ewart Brown to issue a statement commending both players.

Lofty recognition, indeed.

All of a sudden the villains of Cup Match were heroes, simply for saying sorry . . . which is what they should have said immediately after the match and not a week later on national TV when the implications of their actions ? possible exclusion from Bermuda's training squad for the World Cup ? had fully sunk in.

Yes, it was the gentlemanly thing to do. But there was a time when apologies for such indiscretions were expected as a matter of course and not hailed by our country's leaders as some unprecedented act of good sportsmanship.