The 22-year-old double Beijing Paralympic gold medallist from Derry in Northern Ireland, who is visually impaired, has been working out wih Maguire in Florida as he continues his preparations to try to qualify for both the Olympics and Paralympics in London.

Maguire, a former director of coaching with the Athletics Association of Ireland (AAI) and 2006 Northern Ireland coach of the year, impressed Brauman after the American invited Smyth to train with former world champion Gay and his world elite group last year as part of Smyth's bid to compete in the 2012 Olympic Games.

Maguire was officially offered the position by Brauman at last year’s World Championships in Berlin and will split his time between Florida in the winter and Europe in the summer.

Maguire said: "What I’ll learn with Lance will be absolutely brilliant for me as a coach.

"It’ll be the equivalent of me doing a level 10 course in coaching.

"I feel so privileged to be asked to help out.

"Our philosophies would be very similar.

"We would always expect the best.

"‘Lance is a very experienced coach and has regularly brought male sprinters under 10 seconds and female sprinters under 11 seconds.

"The bar is very high with him.’

With the support of the Northern Ireland Sports Institute (NISI), Maguire intends creating a link-up with Brauman’s group and his ultimate hope is to have more Irish sprinters train in Florida.

His appointment will be regarded as significant for Maguire and Ireland in athletics circles but he anticipates that it will largely be met with as much indifference by the AAI as Smyth’s heroics in Beijing.

Smyth set world records in the 100 and 200 metres in the T13 category at the 2008 Paralympics in Beijing, running first 10.62sec in the 100m to improve the mark of 10.81 he had set in the heat.

He then ran 21.81 in his heat of the 200m before winning the final in 21.43. 

Maguire said: "After Jason won his two gold medals, we had a lot of media interest but there wasn’t one athletics coach in Ireland who asked me about how we did it.

"Jason had hurt his hamstring after his 200m heat.
 
"He wasn’t able to do a warm-up, do any strides or come out of the blocks in the warm-up area so I solely had to focus on the mental preparation to get him ready and he ended up running a personal best.

"If I’m really honest, there’s a wee bit of jealousy in what Jason’s doing because he is heavily funded and the support is great.

"We wouldn’t be able to do this without the help of both [Irish and Northern Irish] sports councils and the help of the NISI [Northern Ireland Sports Institute]."