She must be in her 40s by now
Turned 41 there recently I read during the week
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Anyone able to post this up? Archive.ph only shows the first 2 paragraphs
Cathal Dennehy: Fionnuala McCormack might be the most underappreciated star in Irish sport
Wouldn’t it be great if the Dublin Marathon organisers could put an appearance fee on the table that’d make it worth Fionnuala McCormack’s while to line up in the coming years?
Cathal Dennehy: Fionnuala McCormack might be the most underappreciated star in Irish sport
Fionnuala McCormack is the only Irishwoman in history to compete at five Olympics and a sixth looks realistic in Los Angeles. Pic: Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
FRI, 07 NOV, 2025 - 22:20
CATHAL DENNEHY
It’s 20 years – Lord save us – since I enrolled at Dublin City University, settling into room 108A in House 14, otherwise known as the athletes’ house. With five athletes to an apartment and 10 apartments in total, there were a whole lot of dreams knocking around that building – most of which would go unfulfilled.
Back then, the scholarship programme at DCU was in its infancy and it didn’t take long to see that all athletes there were not created equal, from those tearing the arse out of it on Freshers’ week, starting as they meant to go on, to those who wouldn’t touch a drop of booze all season.
College is a great education, mostly for what happens outside of lecture halls, as youngsters look around, trying to find their tribe and figure out who they really are. For those trying to become good athletes, you can be told ad nauseum what’s required but it’s a whole lot more impactful when you see it. In DCU during that time, everyone knew who set the standard, quietly demonstrating day after day, year after year, what a world-class operator looked like.
Back then she was Fionnuala Britton, the Wicklow native taking the surname of fellow distance runner Alan McCormack when they married in 2015. A decade earlier, around DCU, no one was in any doubt about who trained the hardest, who was the most disciplined and who could put themselves through the most pain. With athletes like McCormack – willing to train the house down and go so deep in the well come race day – the tendency is to label them hardworking, tough, gritty. But that suggests their achievements are merely an act of will. The reality is that McCormack also had immense talent, winning national schools’ titles on the track and cross country and that gift, coupled with her fastidious approach, allowed her to have the career she’s had. And it’s not remotely done yet.
She’s 41 now, a mother of three, but over the last seven weeks she’s cracked the top-10 in both the World Championships marathon in Tokyo and the New York City Marathon. Those feats might not move the dial for most Irish sports fans – part of which is due to McCormack’s quiet, understated approach – but they’re massive achievements all the same.
McCormack doesn’t do pre-race interviews, once telling me that she’d rather talk about something she’s done rather than something she’s going to do – although in the aftermath, you also won’t find her espousing her achievements. She doesn’t own a smartphone, doesn’t have social media. In the age of influencers, her approach is refreshingly old-school. As a result, she might be the most underappreciated star in Irish sport. But she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The way the world is now, it’s just not for me,” she said in Tokyo. “I don’t have any interest in social media. That’s not why I started in the sport and it’s not what I want to get out of it.”
Back in 2001, aged 16, McCormack got her first taste of big-time athletics, finishing 98th in the junior race at the World Cross Country in Belgium. A year later, she was 72nd in that race in Dublin, then 33rd the year after that. Inch by inch, edging closer to the world’s best. She spent a chunk of her track career as a 3000m steeplechaser, making the world final in 2007 and reaching her first Olympics in Beijing in 2008. Four more Olympics would follow, her best result being 15th over 10,000m in London 2012. In Rio she was 20th in the marathon, in Tokyo she was 25th while in Paris she was 27th.
None of those were bad runs, but they didn’t quite reflect her true potential. In Valencia last December, we got a better indication, McCormack setting her marathon PB of 2:23:46, and we saw it again in Tokyo and New York, McCormack finishing ninth and 10th against the world’s best. Her top result at a Marathon Major was fifth in Chicago in 2019 where she ran 2:26:47 and in New York last Sunday, she went out to attack her PB but faded in the second half, clocking 2:27:00 – her fastest ever time on a hilly course.
The one certainty with McCormack? She’ll extract whatever’s in the locker on race day. The tougher the conditions, the higher she tends to place, and one of her finest runs was finishing 14th at the 2007 World Cross Country in the sweltering heat of Mombasa. There have been plenty of medals too: European Cross Country gold in 2011 and 2012, European Indoor 3000m bronze in 2013 and an U-23 Euro Cross silver in 2006 with the champion, Binnaz Uslu of Turkey, later handed a seven-year doping ban.
McCormack doesn’t do many interviews, but when she does they’re typically compelling. When nation-hopping athletes from Kenya were farcically winning a slew of European medals for Turkey, she didn’t hold back. “It’s a joke really,” she said in 2016. “I don’t think people should be able to just hop countries just because they feel like it. Once you’ve represented one country past a certain age, that should be your country for life.”
When European Athletics made athletes race with ‘I Run Clean’ on their bibs, she was rightly just as critical, knowing the cancer of doping wouldn’t be lessened, never mind eradicated, by such PR moves. “It’s a complete joke,” she said. “I’ve said it to people at the top and they’ve basically just said it’s not something you have a choice in, just go and do it as it makes [the sport] look good to the rest of the public. The athletes are basically pawns in the whole thing.”
McCormack was also one of the last elite-level converts to super shoes, which arrived on the scene in 2016, worn covertly by select Nike athletes in the Olympic marathon in Rio, contravening the rules at the time. McCormack continued to run major marathons in slim, old-school racing flats after super shoes became widely available, wanting her times to be down to her alone. Eventually, she felt compelled to make the switch and give herself a fighting chance.
She’s the only Irishwoman in history to compete at five Olympics and a sixth looks realistic in Los Angeles. She’s the most-capped Irish female athlete in history, with 46 appearances, and looks set to overtake the only man ahead of her: Terry McHugh on 48. What’s left to do? One gap on McCormack’s CV is that she’s never run the Dublin Marathon, which is understandable. After all, she can take her pick of the world’s best marathons and is still hunting Catherina McKiernan’s Irish record of 2:22:23, with Dublin not renowned for fast times. Still, the last five women’s titles in Dublin have been won by Ethiopians, the kind McCormack has the beating of. Wouldn’t it be great if organisers could put an appearance fee on the table that’d make it worth McCormack’s while to line up in the coming years?
Imagine the scene as she raced through Dublin – a city she knows so well – and ended up shoulder to shoulder with an international rival as she reached the final mile, with thousands lining the streets. For an athlete who’s given so much to the Irish vest, for so long, it’d be a hell of a way for the nation to say thanks.
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Just listening to Greg Allen give his report on Morning Ireland and wondering why isn’t cross country an Olympic event @Bandage? Is it a makey uppy sort of thing for the Oirish and Brits to have a chance in?
I think running is catered for enough at the Olympics already
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I dunno really pal. But there’s European & World Cross Country championships so other places get a kick out of running in the shit too. We’ve had John Treacy, Sonia O’Sullivan & others excelling. I saw the NCAA cross countries were on at the weekend too. In short, I don’t know. Probably worthwhile for those who don’t have elite speed on the track to dig in & find a niche.
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Probably because it’s primarily a winter sport and the Olympics are always held in the summer.
Be hard to find a muddy field for them to plough through, although if I recall correctly, Sonia won a World Championship in sunny Marrakesh.
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Three legged running, backwards running and having the runs could all the added
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This is why. Cross Country can produce it’s fair share of steeplechasers or longer endurance athletes who love a slog
This is a pity. Good idea but needs big funding.
Adileke on Newstalk now. Amazing girl trying to be one in a billion.
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She has every chance to be. She’s already 1 in a million
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Euro cross country on RTE Player. 16 year old Emma Hickey from New Ross with a Bronze medal already in the U20 event. Men’s U20 reaching the finish now
Terrible course. It’s like a BMX course
Purpose built Greg tells us. Reclaimed wasteland.
Over on RTE 2 now. Nick Griggs on in U23. He’s due a gold medal in these
Nick Griggs on fire
Griggs is walking all over these lads
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