‘IF YOU RUN A PERSONAL BEST YOU HAVE TO SAY IT’S GOOD’
Top 20 finish for flying Fionnuala in her first Olympic marathon
WICKLOW’S Fionnuala McCormack delivered a personal best performance to earn a top 20 finish in the women’s marathon in the Olympic Games in Rio.
Running in her first ever Olympic marathon, the Kilcoole runner finished in 20th place with a time of 2:31:22, just over seven minutes slower than champion Jemima Sumgong of Kenya.
Despite a gruelling race, the 31-year-old athlete was clearly delighted with her performance and marks it out as her best ever showing at the championships.
‘It was tough but it was nice to be top 20 and I think it’s my best Olympics to date. If you run a personal best, you have to say it’s good,’ she said.
‘I like the championships. It’s racing rather than time trialling. I love running for my country. I think it was a very good course’.
McCormack had to deal with running in the searing heat in Rio but it’s something she says doesn’t affect her as much as others and she can cope with the high temperatures.
‘Maybe I’m just lucky. It doesn’t phase me before I start. I know I can actually run in it,’ she said.
However, McCormack did sensibly opt to run a tactical race in the stifling heat. She didn’t start out to keep with the leaders and was in 73rd position at the 10k mark and then gradually moved past her competitors at every interval to eventually finish in 20th place.
The Wicklow woman was one of three Irish athletes competing in the marathon with Lizzie Lee and Breege Connolly finishing in 57th and 76th place respectively.
It’s only McCormack’s third marathon having qualified for the Olympics at the Chicago marathon last October and making her championship debut at the 2014 European Championships in Zurich where she finished tenth in her previous best time.
McCormack decided against running in the shorter distance races in the Olympics in which she has found success in the past. She also qualified for the 10,000m at these Olympics but the two races were too close together for her to compete in both.
It was a surprise to some that she went for the longer distance when only a month ago she ran the 10k at the European Championships in Amsterdam.
However, it appears that she enjoyed the challenge of running an Olympic marathon and has to be extremely satisfied with her performance in a personal best time, which will surely give her plenty of confidence in her next race, and as she looks towards the European Championships in 2018.
This was McCormack’s third time competing at an Olympic Games, having ran in the 3,000m steeplechase in Beijing in 2008 and both the 5,000m and 10,000m in London 2012.