British teenager clocks 8:40.05 in Ostrava to beat Sofia Thøgersen’s mark by 10 seconds
Innes FitzGerald’s team-mates at Exeter University will have missed her presence at last weekend’s British Universities Cross Country Championships in Cardiff. But the 18-year-old’s decision to race indoors in Ostrava instead paid off as she demolished her own PB and set a European under-20 women’s record of 8:40.05.
Racing at the Czech Indoor Gala on Tuesday (Feb 4), FitzGerald took down Sofia Thøgersen’s mark of 8:50.26 and also sliced 16 seconds off Zola Budd’s British indoor under-20 record of 8:56.13 set by the barefoot runner when winning an international match at Cosford 40 years ago.
FitzGerald first made her mark in the summer of 2022 when, as a relative novice, she smashed the UK under-17 women’s 3000m record with 8:59.67 to win the SIAB Schools International.
She struggled to improve that mark for a while, but showed her ability on the country when winning two European under-20 titles and a number of national crowns on the mud. What’s more, last summer she finished a fine fourth in the 3000m at the World Under-20 Championships in Lima behind three east Africans.
Innes FitzGerald (Getty)
Under the guidance of coach Gavin Pavey, she improved her 3000m best to 8:48.30 when winning a mixed sex race by 22 seconds in Cardiff last month and has now taken a further eight seconds off that time this week.
It caps a great few days for British athletes over 3000m with Melissa Courtney-Bryant winning in style at the New Balance Indoor Grand Prix in Boston in 8:28.69 and George Mills breaking Josh Kerr’s UK record with 7:27.92 in France.
Finally, people are now talking more about FitzGerald’s performances rather than her much-publicised reluctance to travel by air due to environmental reasons.
The Ostrava race was won by Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu in 8:24.17 as FitzGerald battled behind into fourth place, clocking kilometre splits of 2:55.8, 2:54.2 and 2:50.0.
As a measure of FitzGerald’s ability, Budd’s 8:56.13 performance in 1985 was a UK and Commonwealth indoor record at the time. Budd, who was 18 at the time, won the world cross-country senior women’s title in Lisbon a few weeks later – 23 seconds ahead of Ingrid Kristiansen, who in turn went on to win the London Marathon the following month in 2:21:06.
» Subscribe to AW magazine here, check out our new podcast here or sign up to our digital archive of back issues from 1945 to the present day here
About The Author
