It was a perfect way to celebrate a record breaking seventh British title which the 23-year-old won comfortably in Sheffield over the weekend.

McCorkell had qualified for the Games back in March after finishing 20th in the World Championships in Los Angeles but the official announcement was nonetheless welcomed with delight.

"I've been looking forward to it because it's been since March since I qualified so it's been a long wait to be able to publicise it and enjoy it and say that I'm officially and Olympian and going to Vancouver.

This has been my dream since I was seven years old," she explained.
Despite the excitement there is still plenty of work to do and competitions ahead for McCorkell between now and the Olympics.

This week she is off to Germany and then will have another couple of shows before Christmas and while the holidays will be spent at home she will head immediately to Austria to prepare for the European Championships in Estonia at the end of January where she'll try and better her best performance of 8th in 2008, she was ninth earlier this year.

Then she'll have 10 days to recover before heading to Vancouver.

"It's a busy schedule but it's quite good because it means I don't have to concentrate on the Olympics just yet otherwise I'd just be sitting around thinking about it too much and it's better just to get on with things and the Europeans is a very important competition for me that I need to focus on before the Olympics."

She added: "It's very exciting however, I don't really know what to expect at an Olympics. Everyone says once you get into the ice rink it's just like any other competition but I think the atmosphere will be different to anything else."

McCorkell hasn't set any goals yet as to what she wants to achieve in Vancouver. Unlike other major events countries are limited in how many competitors they can send to an Olympics and qualification for some hasn't ended yet so she doesn't know the full extent of her competition but she is ranked inside the top 20 in the world with two top 10 finishes in the Europeans over the last two years so top 16 is certainly achievable.

"I'm not worried about that yet. Let's see who will be competing first.

"For me it's fun to know that I'll probably be Northern Ireland's only athlete at the Games which isn't a surprise, winter sports are obviously difficult to be part of at home, those opportunities don't exist so I'm not sure there will be that much attention on me, I'm sure my mum will let me know!"