Fionnuala McCormack (née Britton; born 24 September 1984 in

Wicklow Wicklow ( ; ga, Cill Mhantáin , meaning 'church of the toothless one'; non, Víkingaló) is the county town of County Wicklow in Ireland. It is located south of Dublin on the east coast of the island. According to the 2016 census, it has ...

) is an Irish runner who has competed at a range of

distance running Long-distance running, or endurance running, is a form of continuous running over distances of at least . Physiologically, it is largely aerobic in nature and requires stamina as well as mental strength. Within endurance running comes two d ...

events. She was the gold medallist at the 2011 and 2012 European Cross Country Championships. She has represented Ireland in the steeplechase at the

2008 Beijing Olympics The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nati ...

and

2012 London Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

, the

2007 World Championships in Athletics The 11th World Championships in Athletics, () under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), were held at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan from 24 August to 2 September 2007. 200 of the IAAF's 212 member federa ...

and

2011 World Championships in Athletics The 13th IAAF World Championships in Athletics () was an international athletics competition that was held in Daegu, South Korea. It started on 27 August 2011 and finished on 4 September 2011. The United States topped the medal standings in the ...

, and twice at the

European Athletics Championships The European Athletics Championships is a biennial (from 2010) athletics event organised by the European Athletics Association and is recognised as the elite continental outdoor athletics championships for Europe. Editions First held, for m ...

. In December 2012, Britton became the first woman to successfully defend the European Cross Country Championship.

Career

She began her international junior career in

cross country running Cross country running is a sport in which teams and individuals run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain such as dirt or grass. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open ...

in 2001, highlighted by 33rd place at the

2003 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 2003 IAAF World Cross Country Championships took place on March 29/30, 2003. The races were held at the L'Institut Équestre National in Avenches near Lausanne, Switzerland. Reports of the event were given in ''The New York Times'', in ...

. She won a steeplechase silver at the 2006 European Cup and also competed in the event at the

, being eliminated in the heats.Britton, Fionnuala

IAAF World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body fo ...

. Retrieved on 19 December 2010. She took the under-23

silver medal A silver medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, e ...

at the

2006 European Cross Country Championships The 13th European Cross Country Championships were held at San Giorgio su Legnano in Italy on 10 December 2006. Mo Farah took the title in the men's competition, while Tetyana Holovchenko won the women's race. Results Men individual 9.95 km ...

at the end of the year. She was fourteenth in the senior race at the

2007 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 2007 IAAF World Cross Country Championships took place on March 24, 2007. The races were held at the Mombasa Golf Course in Mombasa, Kenya. Four races took place, one for men, women, junior men and junior women respectively. All races encomp ...

– the second best European performer behind Jessica Augusto (12th). She made her global track debut at the

and was twelfth in the steeplechase final. She ended the year with a seventh-place finish at the

2007 European Cross Country Championships The 14th European Cross Country Championships were held at Toro in Spain on 9 December 2007. Serhiy Lebid took his seventh title in the men's competition and Marta Domínguez won the women's race. Results Men individual 10.7 km Total 5 ...

. She made her Olympic debut at the

2008 Summer Games The 2008 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXIX Olympiad () and also known as Beijing 2008 (), were an international multisport event held from 8 to 24 August 2008, in Beijing, China. A total of 10,942 athletes from 204 Nati ...

in Beijing, but did not make the women's steeplechase final. She came eleventh at the

2009 European Cross Country Championships The 2009 European Cross Country Championships was a continental cross country running competition that was held on 13 December 2009 near Dublin city, Fingal in Ireland. Dublin was selected as the host city in 2007 and the event was the first ti ...

which was held in her home city of Dublin. Britton was also eleventh in the steeplechase final at the

2010 European Athletics Championships The 2010 European Athletics Championships were the 20th edition of the European Athletics Championships, organised under the supervision of the European Athletic Association. They were held at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys in Barcelona, C ...

. She just missed out on a medal at the

2010 European Cross Country Championships The 2010 European Cross Country Championships was a continental cross country running competition that took place on 12 December in Albufeira, Portugal. It was the second time that the country hosted the event, building upon the 1997 edition h ...

, finishing with the same time as bronze medallist

Ana Dulce Félix Ana Dulce Ferreira Félix (born 23 October 1982) is a Portuguese long distance runner who competes in track, cross country, and road running events. She ran the Olympic marathon in 2012 and 2016 and placed 21st and 16th, respectively.

. She took second place at the Lotto Cross Cup Brussels a week later. In preparation for the world competition, she ran at the

Almond Blossom Cross Country The Almond Blossom Cross Country ( pt, Cross Internacional das Amendoeiras em Flor) is an annual international cross country running competition which takes place in Albufeira, in the Algarve region of Portugal, in early March. It is one of the IAA ...

in March 2011 and took second place. She managed 16th place at the

2011 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 2011 IAAF World Cross Country Championships took place on March 20, 2011. The races were held at the Polideportivo Antonio Gil Hernández in Punta Umbría, Spain. Reports of the event were given for the IAAF. Preparation The Unite ...

Punta Umbría Punta Umbría is a town and municipality in the province of Huelva, part of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia. It is a fishing village located on the banks of the Rio Odiel river and across the water from the capital, Huelva. It is su ...

. She ran a personal best of 15:31.26 minutes for the

5000 metres The 5000 metres or 5000-metre run is a common long-distance running event in track and field, approximately equivalent to or . It is one of the track events in the Olympic Games and the World Championships in Athletics, run over laps of a sta ...

at the

FBK Games The FBK Games is an annual track and field event at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadion in Hengelo, Netherlands as part of the IAAF World Challenge Meetings. It was first organized in 1981. Its name honours Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won four gold med ...

in June then ran a steeplechase best of 9:37.60 minutes at the

Adidas Grand Prix The USATF New York Grand Prix is an annual athletics meeting held at Icahn Stadium in New York City, United States. First started in 2005 as the Reebok Grand Prix and then Adidas Grand Prix, it was previously one of the IAAF Grand Prix events ...

in New York. Britton represented Ireland on the track at the

, narrowly being eliminated in the first stage of the steeplechase. In November she came third at the high-level

Cross de l'Acier The Cross de l'Acier ( en, Cross of Steel) was an annual cross country running competition held in late November in Leffrinckoucke, France. First held in 1990, it was one of the foremost competitions of its type in France. Ten races were held at th ...

cross country race. In December 2011, she won the gold medal at the

2011 European Cross Country Championships The 2011 European Cross Country Championships was the 18th edition of the cross country running competition for European athletes which was held in Velenje, Slovenia on 11 December. Atelaw Yeshetela of Belgium won the men's title to become t ...

. She began 2012 with wins at the Great Edinburgh Cross Country and

Antrim Cross Country The Antrim International Cross Country, formerly the Belfast International Cross Country, is an annual cross country running meeting which takes place every January in Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is one of the IAAF's cross country permit meet ...

. She expressed her disappointment that the World Cross Country would not be held that year, and stated that she would focus on track running that year instead. In December of that year she became the first woman to defend the continental cross title claiming victory at the 2012 European Cross Country Championships. In January 2013, Britton retained her Great Edinburgh Cross Country and Antrim Cross Country titles. On 3 March 2013, she won a bronze medal in the

3000 metres The 3000 metres or 3000-metre run is a track running event, also commonly known as the "3K" or "3K run", where 7.5 laps are run around an outdoor 400 m track, or 15 laps around a 200 m indoor track. It is debated whether the 3000m shoul ...

final at the

2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships The 2013 European Athletics Indoor Championships were held at Scandinavium and Svenska Mässan in Gothenburg, Sweden, on 1–3 March 2013. Bidding process The decision to grant the event for Gothenburg was made by the European Athletics Council a ...

in Gothenburg. She placed 13th at the

2013 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 2013 IAAF World Cross Country Championships took place on March 24, 2013. The races were held at the Myślęcinek Park in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Kenya topped the medal standings in the competition with 5 gold, and Ethiopia had the most overal ...

, being Europe's top performer in the race and one of only two non-Africans in the top 15 (alongside

Neely Spence Neely Spence Gracey (born 16 April 1990) is an American long-distance runner who competes in distances from 5000 metres to the marathon. She twice represented her country at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships and was the top non-African ...

). She competed mainly in European competitions in the following two seasons, coming fourth at the

2013 European Cross Country Championships The 2013 European Cross Country Championships was the 20th edition of the cross country running competition for European athletes which was held in Belgrade, Serbia, on 8 December 2013. The senior individual winners were Alemayehu Bezabeh of Spai ...

, ranking eighth in the 10,000 m at the

2014 European Athletics Championships The 2014 European Athletics Championships was held in Zürich, Switzerland, between 12 and 17 August 2014. It was the first time that Switzerland had hosted the European Athletics Championships since 1954. Great Britain headed the medal table, w ...

, then ending in sixth at the

2014 European Cross Country Championships The 2014 European Cross Country Championships was the 21st edition of the cross country running competition for European athletes which was held in Samokov, Bulgaria, on 14 December 2014. The events were hosted at Borovets – a winter sports and ...

(and taking a team bronze). She married in 2015 and began competing as Fionnuala McCormack. Her first success under her married name was a team bronze at the 2015 European Cross Country Championships, where she narrowly missed an individual medal in fourth place behind

Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal Karoline Bjerkeli Grøvdal (born 14 June 1990) is a Norwegian middle-, long-distance and steeplechase runner. She won bronze medals for the 10,000 metres at the 2016 European Championships, and in the 3000 m steeplechase at the 2018 Eur ...

.SPAR European Cross Country Championships - Hyères 2015 Senior Women Final
European Athletics. Retrieved on 2015-12-14. She finished 5th in the

2019 Chicago Marathon The 2019 Chicago Marathon was the 42nd annual running of the Chicago Marathon held in Chicago, Illinois, United States on October 13, 2019. The men's race was won by Kenyan Lawrence Cherono in 2:05:45 while the women's was won by Kenyan Brigid ...

. In 2019, she competed in the senior women's race at the

2019 IAAF World Cross Country Championships The 2019 IAAF World Cross Country Championships were hosted in the city of Aarhus in Denmark. It was the 43rd edition of the championships and was held on 30 March 2019. A part of the course was run on the grounds and grass roof of the Moesgaard ...

held in Aarhus, Denmark. She finished in 18th place.

International competitions

Personal bests

1500 metres The 1500 metres or 1,500-metre run (typically pronounced 'fifteen-hundred metres') is the foremost middle distance track event in athletics. The distance has been contested at the Summer Olympics since 1896 and the World Championships in Athle ...

– 4:08.35 min (2011) *

– 8:55.12 min (2012) *

indoor – 8:53.47 min (2013) *

– 15:08.69 min (2012) *

10,000 metres The 10,000 metres or the 10,000-metre run is a common long-distance track running event. The event is part of the athletics programme at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships, and is common at championship level events. The ra ...

– 31:18.25 min (2012) *

3000 metres steeplechase The 3000 metres steeplechase or 3000-meter steeplechase (usually abbreviated as ) is the most common distance for the steeplechase in track and field. It is an obstacle race over the distance of the 3000 metres, which derives its name from the ...

– 9:17.60 min (2011) *

Marathon The marathon is a long-distance foot race with a distance of , usually run as a road race, but the distance can be covered on trail routes. The marathon can be completed by running or with a run/walk strategy. There are also wheelchair di ...

– 2 hrs 23:58 min (2021)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:McCormack, Fionnuala 1984 births Living people People from Wicklow (town) Sportspeople from County Wicklow Irish female long-distance runners Irish female steeplechase runners Athletes (track and field) at the 2008 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2012 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2016 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic athletes of Ireland World Athletics Championships athletes for Ireland European Cross Country Championships winners 20th-century Irish women 21st-century Irish women